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THE LIFE AND TIMES 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
OB. L586. 

HIS CP J E i mi i' 1 Kl 0] BED] ORD 



5 Ojixto ^ YYW^ J^OiAjCc, 

THE LIFE AND TIMES 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



u Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose " 

Shelley's Adonais. 



THIRD EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
T T C K N O R AND FIELDS 

M DCCC MX. 



18 5"? A- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 

Ticknor and Fields, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts 



>1 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

S T E R F. I V P E I> A N I> V R 1 X T F. I> 11 V 
II HOUGHTON AM' COMPANY 



*w 



FROM THE AUTHOR. 



' I V HE only noted memoirs of Sir Philip Sidney 
**- are those written by Fulke Greville and by 
Dr. Zouch. The former, although the work of a 
contemporary, and a personal friend, is painfully 
meagre j the latter, though sufficiently voluminous, 
is incomplete ; and both, being out of print, are be 
yond the reach of ordinary readers. The lives pre- 
fixed by Gray to Sidney's Sonnets, and by Pears to 
the Correspondence of Languet ; the fketches con- 
tained in Lodge's " Portraits of Illuftrious Person- 
ages," in Lloyd's " Statesmen and Favorites," in 
the " Britifh Bibliographer," " The Biographia 
Britannica," and several papers on the same theme 
in the Englifh Reviews, are interesting and val- 
uable, but neceflarily deficient in fulness and con- 
tinuity. I have here endeavored to collect the 
scattered souvenirs of Sidney's life ; to verify 
every recorded fad:, and to exclude every fiction, 
however plaufible, which, while gilding the ftory 
with false attractions, would mar the higher beauty 
that belongs to truth. 



6 FROM THE AUTHOR. 

If this little volume, which is the fruit of leisure 
hours, and of an earneft admiration of its subject, 
mall afford information or intereft to its readers, I 
fhall willingly endure the criticisms to which it is 
liable ; conscious that, while abler pens might give a 
greater charm to the annals of the illuftrious Sidney, 
I have at leaft aimed to present them with clearness 
and fimplicity, and without pretence. 

S. M. D. 
Oct. 1858. 



& 



TO MY SON 

I DEDICATE THIS MEMORIAL, OF ONE WHOSE NAME IS A 

SYNONYM FOR EVERY MANLY VIRTUE, AND WHOSE 

EXAMPLE, SURPASSING THE STANDARD OF THE 

AGE WHICH IT ADORNED, REMAINS STILL 

BRILLIANT WHEN CENTURIES HAVE 

PASSED AWAY. 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 

OF 

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 



CHAPTER I. 



fN the queenly days of Elizabeth, the soil of 
England was trodden by noble men, whose 
footprints will be revered until the sun shall 
gild for the last time the dominions on which it 
has been said, he never sets. Bacon, who has left 
a legacy of wisdom quite large enough to redeem 
his meanness; Burleigh, the serene, sagacious 
statesman; Sir Walter Raleigh, the mirror of 
chivalrous accomplishment; Sir Francis Drake, 
the renowned navigator ; Howard, the brave Earl 
of Effingham, whose fleet defeated the Spanish 
Armada; Spenser, Shakspeare, and a host of 
minor lights, glittered in the firmament of the 
august Tudor. No other annals of sovereignty 
can boast such an assemblage of learning, wit, 



2 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

enterprise, statesmanship, and courtly grace ; for 
to her satellites, rather than to herself, belong the 
registered glories of Elizabeth's reign. 

Amidst those unforgotten heroes of an almost 
forgotten day, stands one whose brief and beauti- 
ful life was pronounced by Campbell, " poetry put 
into action" — a hero born to greatness, achiev- 
ing greatness, and having greatness thrust upon 
him ; not the greatness of massive intellect or of 
hereditary position, but rather that which is the re- 
sult of a perfectly harmonious nature ; the union 
of inherited talent and rare culture, with a heart 
spontaneously generous, earnest, and true. When 
we add to this the personal endowments of manly 
beauty, of stately presence, and of gentle speech, 
we may not marvel that he was the cynosure of 
the court and the idol of friendship ; that the par- 
tial queen claimed him as " her jewel," or that 
famous men sought posthumous praise in the 
monumental record, " The friend of Sir Philip 

SlDiNEY." 

It is to be regretted that the memorials of this 
illustrious favorite are so brief and scanty, espec- 
ially those of his social and domestic relations. 
Scarcely an anecdote of his private life has been 
transmitted for the benefit of those curious to 
know just how the " hero" appeared to his valet 
de chambre. But since no picture is preserved of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 3 

him in dressing-gown and slippered neglige, we 
are fain to content ourselves with such gala- 
draped sketches as we can find, believing, too, 
that the inner life is often revealed through the 
fluttering of state robes. 

The castle of Penshurst situated in the county 
of Kent, was the baronial dwelling of the Sidney 
family, though, long before their name was known 
beyond the shores of France, its massive towers 
and embattled front had frowned on many a 
feudal lord and rude retainer. Ben Jonson's 
verse brings back to us the echoing sounds of its 
departed glory — 

" Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show 
Of touch or marble ; nor canst boast a row 
Of polish'd pillars, or a roofe of gold ; 
Thou hast no lantherne, whereof tales are told, 
Or stayre, or courts ; but stand'st an ancient pile, 
And these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while, 
Thou ioy'st in better markes, of soyle, of ayre, 
Of wood, of water ; therein thou art faire ; 
Thou hast thy walkes for health as well as sport ; 
Thy Mount, to which the Dryads doe resort ; 
Where Pan and Bacchus, their high feasts have made, 
Beneath the broad beech and the chest-nut shade ; 
That taller tree, which of a nut was set 
At his great birth, where all the Muses met." 

The principal buildings in this ancient pile form 



4 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

a quadrangle enclosing a spacious court. Over 
the grand portal was an inscription testifying that 
the manor was a gift from Edward the Sixth to 
William de Sidney, who was his tutor, chamber- 
lain, and steward of his household, and had been 
distinguished by his bravery on the field of 
Flodden. 

The great banqueting hall was curiously dec- 
orated with grotesque figures that supported the 
roof, and its fireplace, encased in a frame of iron, 
is said to have had strength and capacity enough 
to hold huge piles of wood r and nearly sufficient 
to sustain the trunk of a giant tree. The stairs 
were formed of vast blocks of solid oak, and the 
floors of many of the state apartments were of 
massive planks from the same royal wood. The 
spacious portrait gallery was, in the latter part of 
the last century, adorned with curious and rare 
historical pictures, and also with portraits, some 
of them by Holbein, of the Sidneys and Dudleys, 
and of the monarchs who were their friends and 
patrons. There were the " counterfeit present- 
ments" of Sir Philip Sidney, and of his sister, 
the Countess of Pembroke, the subject of 
Jonson's noted epitaph : 

" Underneath this sable hearse, 
Lies the subject of all verse ; 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 5 

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother, 
Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
Learn'd and fair, and good as she, 
Time shall throw his dart at thee," &c. 

A portrait of their celebrated uncle, Robert Dud- 
ley, Earl of Leicester, was also then a tenant of 
that voiceless gallery. An epigram found in the 
Hawthornden MSS. is of a less flattering char- 
acter : 

" Here lies a valiant warrior, 
Who never drew a sword. 
Here lies a noble courtier 
Who never kept his word. 
Here lies the Earle of Leicester, 
Who governed the Estates, 
Whom the Earth could never living love, 
And the just Heaven now hates." 

Sweet Amy Robsart was better avenged by pos- 
terity than by her contemporaries. The proud 
peer, whose art kept pace with his ambition, 
whose guile was equalled only by his guilt, 
whose vanity instructed his revenge, who poi- 
soned with the unhesitating skill of a Borgia, 
and with the precaution of a Catiline kept ever 
near him the instruments for every species of sin, 
might well defy both scrutiny and retribution, 
under the protecting partiality of an enamored 
queen. But the fair young wife was displaced 



6 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in vain, for in Elizabeth's heart the rule of love 
always yielded eventually to the love of rule, 
and Leicester was left with that crime upon his 
conscience, without even the compensation of a 
crown upon his head. 

The Sidneys were an ancient and honorable 
family, of French origin, their lineal ancestor 
having accompanied Henry the Second from 
Anjou, and afterwards attended him as one of 
his chamberlains. But we hear little of them 
until the services of Sir William, in the fleets 
and armies of Henry the Eighth, obtained for 
him the grant of Penshurst Castle. His only 
son Henry, the father of Sir Philip, was the 
most intimate friend of the good young king, 
Edward the Sixth, of whom Hooker said that 
" though he died young, he lived long, for life is 
in action" After the death of this lamented 
Prince, Sir Henry's abilities as a diplomatist and 
a statesman elicited the highest tokens of esteem 
from both Mary and Elizabeth. Historians have 
cited as one of the caprices of fame that the 
father should now be remembered through the 
son, rather than the son through the father. He 
was president of Wales and governor of Ireland, 
and in these difficult offices of trust, his integrity 
and philanthropy were preeminent. He softened 
the wild asperities of Wales by planting there 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 7 

the institutions of civilization, some vestiges of 
which yet remain. It was impossible to bring 
order out of the chaos of civil war and barbarism 
that had distracted unhappy Ireland for many 
centuries, but Sir Henry, having with Roman 
patriotism spent both life and fortune in the 
effort, gained, like Valerius, the meed of praise 
from the public voice, and of burial from the 
public purse. 

England numbered, in that day, as many good 
and accomplished women, as brave and princely 
men ; and not least among them was Mary, the 
wife of Sir Henry Sidney, and daughter of that 
unfortunate Duke of Northumberland, whose 
"vaulting ambition o'erleaped itself" in the vain 
attempt to enthrone Lady Jane Grey. The chil- 
dren of the Duke were of course implicated in his 
attainder, but from some anomalous impulse of 
goodness on the part of Philip Second of Spain, 
the clemency of his newly wedded Queen was 
solicited and obtained in behalf of all of them ex- 
cept Lord Guilford Dudley, the husband of Lady 
Jane. So unaccountable a departure from the 
usual Machiavelian policy of Philip, must either 
be considered a mistake, or attributed to a desire 
to court the regard of the people of England, 
who already looked upon him and upon his arro- 
gant Spanish retinue with jealous eyes. The 



3 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

exemplary and amiable character of Lady Mary 
Sidney added grace to her own noble house of 
Dudley and another ornament to the annals of 
the lord of Penshurst. Her delicate sensibility 
of temperament and love of quiet and domestic 
life, led her to prefer the seclusion of her beauti- 
ful home to the glittering gayeties of the court. 
There she offered an asylum to such of her 
family as civil calamity had spared, and reared 
the children whose lives were the best tributes to 
her maternal worth. 

The eldest son of these admirable parents was 
born on the 29th of November, 1554, during the 
reign of Queen Mary, who among other marks 
of her favor bestowed upon him the name of her 
renowned spouse. Happily the gift of a name 
does not imply the transmission of the qualities 
thereby represented, or the youthful Philip might 
well have demurred to the royal compliment. 
The mantle of that eminent bigot and illustrious 
brigand, cast no shadow upon either his character 
or his career. 

His birth was poetically commemorated by the 
planting of an oak, 

" That taller tree which of a nut was set," 

and whose bravery of verdure overshadowed the 
park of Penshurst for nearly two centuries after 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 9 

its prototype had passed away.* Many years 
later, when the tenants came on gala days to 
greet their lord, they used to adorn themselves 
with boughs from this consecrated oak 3 in mem- 
ory of Sir Philip. 

His childhood and youth were marked by a 
singular love of learning, by a generous and 
amiable disposition, and by that pensive dignity 
of demeanor usually associated with high-toned 
and reflective minds. The patent of nobility 
was his, not only in social position but as the 
inalienable gift of nature. We may fancy his 
juvenile sports under the " broad beech and 
the chestnut shade," chasing the deer, practising 
simple feats of horsemanship, or tilting in mock 
tournaments ; but evincing even then, it was 
said, thought beyond his years, and habits of 

* " Sidney here was born ; 
Sidney, than whom no greater, braver man, 
His own delightful genius ever feigned, 
Illustrating the vales of Arcady, 
With courteous courage, and with loyal loves. 
Upon his natal day the acorn here 
Was planted ; it grew up a stately oak, 
And in the beauty of its strength it stood 
And flourished, when its perishable part 
Had mouldered, dust to dust. That stately oak 
Itself hath mouldered now, but Sidney's name 
Endureth in his own immortal works." 

SOUTHEY. 



10 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

inquiry and observation that were the marvel of 
his teachers. Destined for the life of a courtier 
and a statesman, no pains were spared to fit him 
for distinction, not only as a brilliant, but as a 
good man. Letters in Latin and in French, 
written by him at the age of twelve years to his 
father, elicited a reply which is considered by all 
his biographers so fine a model of paternal ad- 
vice that it may be worth while to insert it here. 
Through its quaint old Saxon is seen the most 
watchful care for the mental progress of his son, 
and for his culture of true religion — that which is 
of the fervent heart, rather than of the bended 
knee. It seems quite probable that this letter, 
which was preserved in the " Sidney Papers," 
may have been the source of suggestion to Sir 
Walter Raleigh, Sir Matthew Hale, and others, 
whose epistolary counsels to their children are 
still .commended. 

" I have reaceaved too letters from yow, one 
written in Latine, the other in French ; which I 
take in goode parte, and will yow to exercise that 
practice of learninge often : for that will stand 
yow in moste steade, in that profession of lyf that 
yow are born to live in. And since this ys my 
first letter that ever I did write to yow, I will not 
that yt be all emptie of some advyses, which my 
naturall care of yow provokethe me to wish yow 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. H 

to foloye, as documents to yow in this your 
tendre age. Let yowr first actyon be the lyfting 
up of yowr mynd to Almighty God, by harty 
prayer ; and felingly dysgest the woords yow 
speake in prayer, with contynual meditation and 
thinkinge of him to whom yow praye, and of the 
matter for which yow praye. And use this at an 
ordinarye hower. Whereby the time ytself will 
put yow in remembrance to doe that, which yow 
are accustomed to doe in that tyme. Apply 
yowr study to suche howres, as yowr discrete 
master dothe assign yow, earnestlye ; and the 
time, I knowe, he will so lymitt, as shal be both 
sufficient for yowr learninge, and saf for yowr 
health. And mark the sens, and the matter of 
that yow read, as well as the woordes. So shal 
yow both enreiche yowr tonge with woordes, and 
yowr wytte with matter; and judgement will 
growe as yeares growyth in yow. Be humble 
and obedient to yowr master, for unless yow 
frame yowr selfe to obey others, yea, and feale in 
yowr selfe what obedience is, yow shall never be 
able to teach others how to obey yow. Be 
curteese of gesture, and affable to all men, with 
diversitee of reverence, according to the dignitie 
of the person. There ys nothing, that wynneth 
so much with so lytell cost. Use moderate dyet, 
so as after yowr meate, yow may find yowr 



12 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

wytte fresher and not duller, and yowr body more 
lyvely, and not more heavye. Seldom drinke 
wine, and yet sometimes doe, least, being enforced 
to drinke upon the sodayne, yow should find 
yowr selfe inflamed. Use exercise of bodye, but 
suche as ys without peryll of yowr yointes or 
bones. It will encrease yowr force, and enlardge 
yowr breathe. Delight to be cleanly, as well in 
all parts of yowr bodye, as in yowr garments. 
It shall make yow grateful in yche company, and 
otherwise lothsome. Give yowr selfe to be merye, 
for yow degenerate from yowr father, yf yow 
find not yowr selfe most able in wytte and bodye, 
to doe any thinge when yow be most merye ; 
But let yowr myrthe be ever void of all scurilitee, 
and bitinge woordes to any man, for an wound 
given by a woorde is oftentimes harder to be 
cured, than that which is given with the sword. 
Be yow rather a herer, and bearer away of other 
men's talke, than a begynner or procurer of 
speeche, otherwise yow shall be counted to de- 
light to hear yowr selfe speak. Yf yow heare a 
wise sentence, or an apt phrase, commytte yt to 
yowr memorye, with respect to the circumstance, 
when yow shal speake yt. Let never othe be 
hearde to come out of yowr mouthe, nor woord 
of ribaudrye ; detest yt in others, so shal custome 
make to yowr selfe a la we against yt in yowr 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 13 

selfe. Be modest in yche assemble, and rather be 
rebuked of light felowes for meden-like shame- 
fastnes, than of yowr sad friends for pearte 
boldnes. Thinke upon every woorde that yow 
will speake, before yow utter hit, and remembre 
how nature hath rampared up, as yt were, the 
tonge with teeth, lippes, yea and hair without the 
lippes, and all betokening raynes or bridles, for 
the loose use of that membre. Above all things 
tell no untruthe, no not in trifels. The custome 
of hit is naughte, and let it not satisfie yow, that 
for a time, the hearers take yt for a truthe, for 
after yt will be known as yt is, to yowr shame ; 
for ther cannot be a greater reproche to a gentell- 
man than to be accounted a lyare. Study and 
endevour yowr selfe to be vertuously occupied. 
So shall yow make suchean habite of well doinge 
in yow, that yow shal not knowe how to do evell, 
thoughe you wold. Remember, my sonne, the 
noble blood yow are descended of, on yowr 
mother's side ; and thinke that only, by vertuous 
lyf and good action, yow may be an ornament to 
that illustre famylie ; and otherwise, through vice 
and slouthe, yow shall be counted labes generis, 
one of the greatest curses that can happen to man. 
Well, my littell Philippe, this is ynough for 
me, and to muche, I fear, for yow. But, yf 
I shall finde that this light meale of digestione 



14 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

nourishe any thing the weake stomake of yowr 
yonge capacitie, I will, as I find the same growe 
stronger, fead yt with toofer foode. 

" Your lovinge father so long as yow live in 
" the feare of God, 

" H. Sydney. 

If the spirit of prophecy had inspired this com- 
munication, it could not better have pictured the 
future character of young Sidney ; and we are 
told that he was, even then, fondly called by 
his father " lumen familm suce" the brightness 
of his household. Trinity College at Cambridge, 
and Christ Church at Oxford, were the arenas 
of his intellectual labors, and there, in the Olym- 
pic strife with the young and noble sons of Eng- 
land, he wore the laurels of success. Spencer, 
Raleigh, and the historians Camden and Carew, 
were among his fellow-students, and the latter 
has incidentally given us a glimpse of his own 
scholarship, and that of young Sidney. " Upon 
a wrong-conceived opinion touching my suffi- 
ciency, I was called to dispute extempore with 
the matchless Sir Philip Sidney, in presence of 
the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, and divers 
other great personages."* He early became a 

* Old England*? Worthies. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 15 

proficient in Latin and Greek, and especially 
delighted in research among curious old books 
and antique parchments, the exhumed memen- 
toes of the past The overhanging gloom of the 
dark ages had lately rolled away from the world 
of letters. Literature was no longer a costly 
myth, nor science the veiled mystery of the 
monk and the antiquary. The student might now 
light his midnight lamp by the rays of Homer, 
and drink from the sparkling fountains of Virgil. 
Plato belonged, not to Greece, but to the world, 
and the Peripatetic again walked the broad high- 
way of common life. It was said of Philip Sid- 
ney, that "he cultivated not one art or science, 
but the whole circle of arts and sciences ; 
his capacious and comprehensive mind aspiring 
to preeminence in every branch of knowledge." 
We may add his name to the chronicle of those 
who, in the flush of youth, have turned aside 
from the allurements of rank, of wealth, or of 
pleasure, to the 

" Fairy tales of science and the long result of Time," 

thus early witnessing the truth of Thierry's con- 
clusion from a long life of varied experiment, 
" Believe me, there is no earthly happiness equal 
to the unceasing pursuit of knowledge." 

Mirandola, an Italian nobleman who lived in 



1(3 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the fifteenth century, was the marvel of learned 
men and the pride of universities, and, like the 
" admirable Crichton," at the age of twenty-three 
he challenged the savants of Italy to enter the 
lists with him in public disputation. Pascal, 
who shone in goodness as in learning, having 
been forbidden by his father the use of math- 
ematical books, was one day accidentally found 
sitting on the floor of his room, surrounded by 
charcoal diagrams ; his irrepressible love of 
science having led him, untaught, to the exact 
demonstration of the thirty-second problem of 
Euclid. When only sixteen, he wrote so able 
a treatise on Conic Sections that it was attrib- 
uted by Des Cartes to the labors of his father. 
Scaliger, who was deemed one of the most 
learned men of his age ; Lipsius, the celebrated 
scholar and critic ; Tasso, the hapless poet who 

" Wrecked on one slight bark 

The prodigal treasures of his bankrupt soul ; " 

and Crichton himself, who, it was said, " wrote 
and spoke to perfection ten languages at the 
age of twenty," besides being well versed in 
general science ; — of these, some walked the stage 
of Europe contemporaneously with Philip Sidney, 
and, like him, they all aimed in youth at a lofty 
mark. Talent may be late in its unfolding, but 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 17 

habits of industrious application, unless formed 
early are seldom formed at all. 

" There is no such thing as genius," said 
Hogarth, two hundred years later ; " genius is 
nothing but labor and diligence." Perhaps 
Hogarth's own creative abilities and acute in- 
tuitions falsified his assertion ; but it also bears 
the high indorsement of Sir Isaac Newton, who 
declared that "if ever he had effected any thing, 
it had been by patient thinking." It was cer- 
tainly rather through "labor and diligence" 
than from any transcendent native power, that 
our hero reaped his abundant harvest; and it is 
a significant tribute to the goodness of his heart 
and the charm of his manner, that his life, not 
only now, but to its lamented close, 'was un- 
blighted by the attacks of envy and jealousy — 
those scoffing fiends that ever walk in the 
shadow of the successful, whether in social, 
intellectual, or political achievement. 

Before he had laid aside the academic gown 
at the age of seventeen, the pioneers of invention 
and of discovery sought the aid of his discrimi- 
nating judgment, and painters and musicians 
found in him a liberal and appreciative patron. 
Every hour had its earnest employment ; but he 
had none to give to idle pleasures or to question- 
able indulgence. The kingdom of the Beautiful 



IS TH E LIFE AND TIMES OF 

was his chosen home. On its heaven-touched 
heights, and by its pure streams, his young genius 
expanded its glorious capacities, sweeping with 
rapid wing the orbit of science, and soaring 
onward with untiring eye and yet loftier 
aim. 

Like a light within a vase, the spirit shone 
through its outer temple. Tall and finely pro- 
portioned, with regular and handsome features, 
hair of the sunny hue that poets love,* and deep 
blue eyes, expressive of thought and feeling, 
Philip Sidney went forth into the world with 
every endowment that youth could covet, 

" Not mailed in scorn, 

But in the armor of a pure intent." 

Schiller says, " let no man measure by a scale of 
perfection the meagre products of reality." Since 
the best of men are still but men, it is perhaps a 
pity that the faults of this oft-named favorite, the 
shadows upon this luminous humanity, are not 
recorded for our criticism, and, we may add, for 
our encouragement. The Egyptian sculptors were 
forbidden to model their statues by their own 

* " He was extremely beautiful," said the celebrated anti- 
quary, John Aubrey ; " he much resembled his sister, but his 
hair was not red, but a little inclining ; viz : a dark amber 

color." 



SKI PHILIP SIDNEY. jij 

ideal creations, and compelled to adhere to the 
sacred measures of the priesthood. Like them 
we copy with literal chisel from biography and 
history, without improvising even a fancy to 
relieve the monotony of truth. 




20 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 



. CHAPTER II. 

fN all ages, and in all countries, whenever the 
love of action has triumphed over the love 
of repose, has been seen a curiosity to ex- 
plore the recesses of nature, to examine the 
achievements of art, and to read the chequered 
tablets of man's life and character, as written 
in courts and in cottages, in palaces and in pris- 
ons ; in the intrigues of governments, and the 
arcana of private life; in the cabinet of the 
minister who holds the helm of state ; by the 
roadside stream, where the pilgrim eats his morn- 
ing crust ; in the studio of the artist, whose 
embodied visions of beauty speak to the re- 
sponsive soul of universal humanity. To men 
of letters, travelling is a means of knowledge ; 
to men of taste, of accomplishment ; to the idle, 
a relief from ennui ; to the busy, a rest from 
labor; to the sorrowful, a refuge from grief; to 
the joyful, a new field of enjoyment. At the 
period of which we write, the intercommunica- 
tion of travel was far more restricted than at the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 21 

present day, both by the physical impediments 
which science has since removed, and by the 
manifold jealous precautions which still bristled 
around countries but lately emerged from feudal- 
ism. The social maxim of Rochefoucault — "to 
treat every friend as if he might one day be an 
enemy" — seemed still to be the national and 
universal law of Europe. In England, the pres- 
tige and the privilege of foreign travel were 
obtained only by a special grant from the reign- 
ing sovereign, and generally awarded to none 
except merchants on business, to servants of the 
crown, and gentlemen of the realm. Those less 
fortunate subjects, who were condemned to re- 
main within the sea-washed shores of their 
native land, had not even the modern consolation 
of books of adventure. The vivid panoramas 
of people and of places that now divest distance 
of its mysteries, bringing the Pyramids to our 
opera glasses, and the roar of Arctic waters to 
our very ear, were then unpictured for the home- 
sequestered millions. 

We may imagine the hopes that brightened 
the eye of Philip Sidney, when, having bid adieu 
to the venerable cloisters of Oxford, he received 
a license from Queen Elizabeth " to go to parts 
beyond the sea for the space of two years, for 
his attaining the knowledge of foreign Ian- 



22 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

guages." A brilliant cortege departed from 
London on the 26th of May, 1572, and he was 
of the number, equipped, says the old historian, 
with three servants and four horses. The Earl 
of Lincoln, Admiral of the Sea, had lately been 
appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to France, 
and was attended thither by a numerous retinue 
of the chivalry of England. 

The resident minister at the court of Charles 
IX. was at that time Sir Francis Walsingham, 
one of the most zealous, faithful, and successful 
of Elizabeth's statesmen ; unimpeachable in pri- 
vate life, but liable, it must be admitted, to the 
imputation of unscrupulous artifice in the public 
service. To trample upon bigotry with yet 
greater bigotry, was the error of the age, and 
the one blot upon Walsingham's character. His 
almost puritanical zeal in the Protestant cause, 
deepened by exile in early life, led him to the 
employment of every snare and every intrigue 
that could bring disgrace and ruin to the disaf- 
fected Catholics. His eighteen spies, and fifty- 
three agents, who were but spies under a privi- 
leged name, haunted with ghostly omnipresence 
every court in Europe, while at home a system 
of social espionage, almost as efficient as that of 
Fouche, rendered him the very Nemesis Of con- 
spiracy and crime. The Queen was many times 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 23 

indebted for her life and her crown to that " eter- 
nal vigilance," which is the price of royal security 
as well as of republican liberty. One of his 
most subtle schemes was that which caused the 
detention for an entire year of the Spanish Ar- 
mada in 1587. This magnificent flotilla, the 
marvel of Spain and the terror of Europe, was 
nearly prepared for its yet unknown destiny. 
Like a huge leviathan slumbering before its 
conflict with an angry sea, it reposed in the 
sunny waters of the harbor of Cadiz, waiting 
the hour and the command. In a private letter 
from Philip II. to the Pope, the blessing of his 
Holiness had been solicited upon the mysterious 
enterprise, w T hose object, the Spanish council 
were informed, should be disclosed on the cour- 
tier's return. The English minister having learned 
thus much, and probably feeling that in such a 
case " a , little knowledge " was, if not a u dan- 
gerous," at least a useless, thing, determined to 
know more. Through another of his familiar 
spirits, a Venetian priest at Rome, a gentleman 
of the bedchamber of Sextus V. turned traitor 
to his trust. The keeper of the keys of St. Peter 
was one of the most acute and Argus-eyed of 
his order ; but, forgetting on this occasion that 
his own keys were in unanointed hands, he care- 
'essly slept while his cabinet was opened, and a 



24 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

copy hastily taken of the communication from 
his " dear and Catholic son." Walsingham was 
soon both forewarned and forearmed. His next 
step was to defeat the Spanish loan from the 
bank of Genoa, and thus from lack of funds the 
Armada was detained until the arrival (from 
America and the Indies) of an argosy which 
brought the needful supplies.* 

An old writer f says of this subtle statesman, — 
" No one did better ken the Secretary's craft, to 
get counsels out of others, and keep them in 
himself. Marvellous his sagacity in examining 
suspected persons, either to make them confess 
the truth, or confound themselves by denying it 
to their detection .... Indeed, his simula- 
tion (which all allow lawful) was as like to dis- 
simulation (condemned by all good men) as two 
things could be which were not the same. He 
thought that gold might, but intelligence could 
not, be bought too dear ; the cause that so great 
a statesman left so small an estate, and so public 
a person was so privately buried in St. Paul's." 
It was indeed a disgrace to the parsimonious 
Queen, that this efficient and invaluable servant 
was during his long and anxious life most mea- 
grely rewarded, and that his mortal remains were 

* Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages. 
■J- Fuller's Worthies of England. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 25 

interred by his friends in the silence and secrecy 
of night, lest, in accordance with the custom of 
the times, they should be seized by his creditors. 
This was not, however, an uncommon illustration 
of what she termed her " great and inestimable 
care of her loving subjects." 

To* this distinguished man, then at the zenith 
of his career, Sidney was commended by the 
following letter from his uncle the Earl of 
Leicester : — 

" Mr. Walsingham, 

" For so much as my nephew Philip Sidney ys 
lycensed to travyle, and doth presentlie repayre 
unto those parts with my L. Admyrall, I have 
thought good to commend him by these my 
friendlie lines unto you, as to one I am well 
assured will have a speciall care of him during 
his abode there. He is young and rawe, and no 
doubt shall find those countries, and the de- 
meanors of the people somewhat straunge unto 
him ; in which respect your good advice and 
counsell shall greatlie behove him, for his better 
directions, which I do most heartilie pray you to 
voutsafe him, with any other friendlie assistance 
you shall think nedefull for him. His father and 
I do intend his further travalye, if the world be 
quiett, and you shall so think it convenient for 
him. I pray you we may be advertised thereof, 



26 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to the end the same his travalye may be therefore 
directed accordinglie. 

Your vearie friend, 

R. Leycester." 

We may well believe that the ardent fancy of 
young Sidney gazed with delight on the world 
of action, now first opening before him in Paris, 
the gay centre of the civilized world. His were 
the age and the spirit to yearn for action in its 
highest and noblest sense, and if unable yet to 
achieve, he rejoiced to witness and to learn. 
But, in order better to appreciate his interest in 
the shifting scenery of the time, we will endeavor 
to present a brief view of its most important 
features. 

The twilight of the middle ages had been fol- 
lowed by the brightness of a new day, and 
Europe now trod with gigantic step the path of 
progress. The discovery of a new world of 
w T onder and of wealth ; the inventions of paper 
and of printing ; the grand religious crisis of the 
Reformation ; and the contemporaneous sover- 
eignty of four of the greatest monarchs who ever 
graved their names upon the tablets of time, 
formed a combination of events such as will 
probably never again be witnessed by the tenants 
of our earth. The daring vitality of the new 
faith had assailed the bigotry of the old until it 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 27 

trembled with rage and fear. The portals of 
knowledge had responded to the talismanic 
Sesame of the press. The El Dorado of the 
West had filled from its exhaustless treasuries 
the coffers of the East, and had vastly extended 
commerce and navigation. Gustavus Vasa, the 
patriot King of Sweden, had delivered his 
country from the yoke of Denmark, and left 
upon its institutions the impress of his own 
liberal mind. Francis I., the warrior king of 
France, who even in defeat lost not his honour, 
had created in that country a golden age of 
letters. Charles V., whose conquests and whose 
schemes had dazzled Europe during his forty years 
of restless transit from Germany to Spain, and 
from Africa to the Italian States, had at last laid 
aside his sceptre for a scourge, and his imperial 
robe for a monastic gown. Solyman II. slept in 
a marble mausoleum in the city of Constantine 
and the Caesars, where the cradle hymn of Chris- 
tianity had long been replaced by the muezzin's 
call to prayer. The voice of the haughty Turk 
no longer woke the echoes of the Carpathian hills, 
or summoned to surrender the fortresses upon the 
Danube. The isles of Greece trembled not now 
beneath his destroying tread ; and Venice, with 
new joy, flung her marriage ring into the waters 
of the Adriatic. Copernicus, Raphael, Michael 



28 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Angelo, Titian, Tasso, and Correggio, were the 
priests of science and the arts. All these, save 
two alone, had passed away ; and with the abdi- 
cation of Charles in 1556, and the death of Soly- 
raan ten years later, a new set of actors was 
marshalled on the stage. But that memorable 
era stands with pyramidal grandeur between the 
semi-barbarism of the mediaeval and the enlight- 
enment of modern times. It was a period when 
the human mind, after a long slumber in the 
toils of ignorance and prejudice, in which ideals 
of truth and knowledge had flitted before it in 
restless dreams, seemed suddenly waking to the 
songs of advancing Freedom. The thought of 
its own possible perfection seemed to mingle 
with its returning consciousness, and casting off 
each trace of lethargy, it rose, eager to meet and 
to vanquish all opposition to its progress and 
its triumph. 

In the early summer of 1572, peace prevailed 
throughout all the important countries of Europe, 
although the fermentation of rancor and revenge 
heaved in silence beneath many a placid surface. 
England, under the administration of the last of 
the Tudors, breathed the free ah* of religious 
toleration. Cultivating her lands, and increasing 
her manufactures, multiplying her fleets, and 
enriching her exchequer, she already felt the ful- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 29 

filment of the dying prophecy of her illustrious 
martyr at the fires of Oxford : " We shall this 
day kindle such a flame in England as will 
never be extinguished." The daughter of Henry 
VIII. and Anne Boleyn united to the coquettish 
vanity of her mother the imperious will of her 
father. Shrewd, subtle, and sagacious, not un- 
variable in love, but irreconcilable in hate, her 
character had doubtless been modified by her 
youthful sorrows when the prisoner of her jeal- 
ous sister Mary ; and perhaps by the influence 
of Edward VI. of whom she was the favourite 
sister; while her preceptor the good Archbishop 
Parker had inspired her mind with a zealous 
affection for the Church of which her father was 
the first legal defender. 

Scotland, under the regency of the Earl of 
Murray, watched the sunset of her day of na- 
tional sovereignty. Her beautiful and hapless 
Queen, the heroine of story and of song, was 
a prisoner at Fotheringay Castle, cherishing 
vain hopes of release, and planning desperate 
revenge upon the subjects whom she had never 
loved, and the rival cousin whom she had ever 
hated. Her fascinations of person and of manner 
had beguiled of homage every knightly man who 
ventured within the spell of her presence, and 
her romantic position as a woman and a Queen 



30 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

had unsheathed many a valiant sword in her 
behalf. But now, though she knew it not, fifteen 
dreary years of captivity were before her, ere her 
graceful form should bow beneath the headsman's 
axe. Though, like Joanna of Naples, the dark 
suspicion of a husband's murder brooded over 
her fame, (a suspicion which in both cases was 
deepened by immediate marriage with men ac- 
cused of participation in the crime,) yet, like her, 
Mary is commended to merciful judgment by a 
plausible perhaps. Both were alike the victims 
of artful counsel from bad and designing men. 
Joanna's misfortunes were the retribution of her 
errors, but Mary's errors were the parasites of 
her misfortunes. 

The vigorous administration of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, aided by the Cardinal Ximenes, (whose 
zeal and ability in the double duties of prelate 
and prime minister won the reverence of his 
country and the plaudits of the world,) together 
with the discovery of America and the conquest 
of Granada, gave to Spain, in the early part of 
the sixteenth century, a rank which she had 
never known before, and which she forfeited at 
its close. Her prosperity seemed a realization 
of some of those Oriental tales, in which, at the 
summons of the necromancer's wand an army 
of slaves bending beneath inestimable burdens 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 31 

comes forth from cave or mountain, or an argosy 
of perfumed treasures speeds over the sea. The 
gold and silver of Mexico and Peru freighted 
her ships. The commerce of the Jews, who 
were a large and well-established community, 
brought ever multiplying wealth to her cities. 
The last province of the Moors had surrendered 
to Spanish power, and the gates of the Alham- 
bra reluctantly opened to the armies of the Cross. 
That gifted and romantic people combined the 
untamed grace of their native Arabia with a love 
of letters and of art that radiated its solitary light 
during eight centuries, while Europe sat in bar- 
baric gloom. Painting and sculpture were for- 
bidden by the Koran, but every ideal of poetic 
beauty was embodied in their architecture, and 
every known science was illustrated in their in- 
ventions and manufactures. We owe to them 
our arithmetical calculations, and the creation 
of paper ; their silks excelled those of India, and 
their porcelain that of China, while the swords 
of Granada were famed throughout Europe. 
Their system of jurisprudence was a barrier 
against royal and aristocratic encroachment, and 
blessed them with an almost republican freedom. 
Nor should we fail to observe that, while almost 
the world beside had lost or neglected the lessons 
of Chaldean and Egyptian astronomy, and the 



32 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

stars seemed only night lamps in the vault 
above, the Moors still watched the heavens with 
philosophic interest, calculated the eclipses of the 
planets, established the obliquity of the ecliptic, 
divined the cause of the twilight, and solved the 
reason of the refraction of the atmosphere. The 
home of science was thus for long centuries amid 
these devotees of the faith of Islam. 

Their history reminds us of the comment of 
Pyrrhus upon the Romans : " These barbarians 
are not so barbarous after all." When the avarice 
of Spain had absorbed their magnificent posses- 
sions, it would seem that policy alone should have 
dictated kindness to the vanquished ; but here was 
enacted one of the most revolting scenes in the 
sad drama of " man's inhumanity to man." The 
Inquisition — that red right hand of hell — sent 
forth its demons to torture the disciples of Ma- 
hometanism into the love of Christ. True to a 
faith much loftier than such Christianity, they 
suffered death or exile rather than recant. The 
children of Abraham were victims of the same 
atrocious bigotry. It was estimated that in one 
year eight hundred thousand of this doomed na- 
tion were massacred or banished. As they con- 
trolled almost exclusively the commercial interests 
of the country, the retributive injury was great 
and lasting. After the death of the royal patrons 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 33 

of Columbus, and the accession of their grandson 
Charles V., Spain was agitated by a succession 
of civil disturbances arising from that monarch's 
preference for his German dominions, and from 
his ceaseless demands for pecuniary supplies. 
But notwithstanding these numerous exhausting 
influences, Philip II. found himself, on his father's 
abdication, master of the preponderating power 
in Europe. The Spanish fleet was the most 
formidable in the world save that of Turkey, 
and the Spanish was the language of fashion 
and of courtly parlance in Paris, in Vienna, in 
Turin, and in Milan. 

From the death of Francis I. to the period of 
which we write, France was the theatre of reli- 
gious tyranny and political faction. The weak 
administration of Charles IX., and the intrigues 
of his mother, Catherine de Medici, for personal 
dominion, fostered the spirits of violence and 
revolt. The houses of Guise and Montmorenci in 
the name of the Pope, and the princes of Conde 
in the name of the Reformation, fought for indi- 
vidual power rather than for religious principle. 
Every ambitious leader on either side collected an 
army of partisans; and, at one time, no less than 
fourteen of these marauding bands desolated the 
fair provinces watered by the Loire and the 
Garonne. The Protestants, infuriated by perse- 



34 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

cution, learned, like the Catholics, to be bitter in 
warfare and barbarous in triumph. The former 
pillaged Churches, and the latter burned Bibles. 
Bat Charles, alarmed by the ruinous condition of 
his finances, proclaimed an amnesty in 1570, 
promising to the Huguenots pardon for the past, 
and toleration for the future. The promise was 
as treacherous as the stealthy pause of a tiger 
before his fatal spring. The memory of Jarnac 
and Moncontour was only merged in new schemes 
of perfidy, silently matured in the dark counsels 
of the Italian Queen and the Duke of Guise. 

" Time shall unlock what plaited cunning hides." 

The Netherlands at this era presented a picture 
of intense dramatic interest. Though forming a 
portion of the inheritance of Philip II., they had 
never lovingly bent to the Spanish yoke, and after 
years of smothered passion, they were now ripe 
for rebellion. The cruelty and oppression of that 
haughty monarch, in his determined efforts to 
establish the Catholic worship, have no parallel in 
the pages of modern persecution. His fitting 
emissary, the Duke of Alva, preyed like a vulture 
upon the most industrious and wealthy cities in 
the world, typifying his merciless ferocity in his 
statue erected by himself in the market place at 
Antwerp, where he is represented as trampling on 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 35 

the necks of two smaller figures, emblematic of the 
States of the Netherlands. The same atrocious 
idea found utterance in his subsequent boast that 
in five years he had sent eighteen thousand here- 
tics to the executioner. The peaceful inhabitants, 
whose only crime was their claim to liberty of con- 
science, and whose first trials began with the edict 
against it by Charles V. in 1550, flocked by thou- 
sands to England, Germany, and France, carry- 
ing with them arts and manufactures hitherto 
almost unknown in those countries, but henceforth 
a source to them of emolument and prosperity.* 
Meanwhile, William of Orange, the silent hero 
of Holland's hope, wrought with patient zeal 
from his own mind, and life, and substance, the 
instruments of her release, unconsciously wreath- 
ing at the same time his patriot crown with the 
idolizing affection of her grateful sons and daugh- 
ters. The signal gun of a long and most memor- 

* Among many illustrations of a wealth which was cer- 
tainly the product of industry, is a story of the wife of Philip 
the Fair of France, who, while making a tour with her royal 
spouse through Flanders, evidently expected to " create a 
sensation " among the Flemish dames by the splendor of her 
own attire. Looking with indignant surprise upon the glit- 
tering jewels and rich silks of the ladies of Bruges, she ex- 
claimed, " I thought that I was the only Queen here, but I 
find six hundred Queens beside myself in this place." 



36 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

able contest had just been fired. The sea-port 
town of Brille was seized from the Spanish guards 
by the Gueux or beggars, a combination of mer- 
chants and noblemen, whose wallet and staff, the 
symbols of their hatred and despair, now sum- 
moned to the rally, firm, true hearts, the denizens 
of humble hamlets, and of old feudal castles, 
boatmen from Zealand, and burghers from Ant- 
werp, Amsterdam, and Leyden, until the canals, 
the rivers, and the sea-washed plains of the future 
battle-ground of Europe swarmed with heroes as 
desperate as those who defended the pass of Ther- 
mopylae, swept through the English hosts at Ban- 
nockburn, or waved in triumph the banner of 
Switzerland and of Tell over the Austrian troops 
at Morgarten. 

To the general reader, the history of no nation 
is more hopelessly chaotic than that of the 
German Empire and its dependencies, for three 
centuries preceding the reign of Charles V. Pa- 
tience toils wearily through the confused details 
of wars between Dukes and Princes, wars for the 
elective imperial throne, wars for the sovereignty 
of Italy, contests against Popes, and battles 
against Infidels ; Guelphs and Ghibelines now 
opposing hostile front to each other, and, anon, 
uniting their embattled squadrons against the 
common foe ; one army swept away for the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 37 

cross and another for the crescent; useless vic- 
tories and ruinous defeats ; now the Tiber bear- 
ing a crimson tribute to the sea, and again the 
plundered towns and wasted harvests of Austria, 
Hungary, and Germany, repeating the sad tale 
of desolation. The Reformation, too, through 
long years germinating in thoughtful minds, and 
born amid the convulsive throes of fanaticism 
and of faction, kindled new flames by its fervid 
purifying breath. But the elements were now 
hushed in happy silence. The reigning Em- 
peror, Maximilian II., was too prudent and too 
pacific for the strife of either bigotry or domin- 
ion. A truce of twelve years with the Turks 
granted respite from his most dreaded foes, while 
the hymns of fraternal peace chimed through his 
extended principalities. 

But while the jealous kinsmen of Christendom 
thus vibrated between friendship and hostility, 
there loomed before them a foreign enemy, whose 
giant footfall reverberated to the remotest corner 
of civilization. The Turkish name had ever 
been the synonym of indomitable will and 
merciless success, from the distant day when 
the military colonists that bore it emerged from 
the table lands of Tartary, until the resistless tide 
of their migration laved the ramparts of Venice 
and Vienna. We learn of their selling forbear- 



38 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ance to China in exchange for splendid gifts; 
then of their alliance with Rome against the 
Persians ; and their affluence of barbaric spoil 
appears in the story of the Khan Disabul, who 
received the ambassadors from the seven-hilled 
city in a tent festooned with silk, and decorated 
with a couch of pure and massive gold, sup- 
ported on four golden peacocks, while cups, 
vases, and statues of gold and silver, were scat- 
tered profusely around. A few centuries later 
they swept away the pagodas of India, and 
overturned the caliphate at Bagdad ; and having 
obtained by slow degrees the provinces of Asia 
Minor, they crossed the Hellespont, and poured 
their unfaltering armies over the Byzantine Em- 
pire. The degenerate Greeks were an easier 
prey than the stalwart bands of Hungary and 
Thrace. There was small glory in conquest 
over the superstitious people who destroyed their 
navy, because the protection of Deity was suffi- 
cient panoply against infidel might ; and who 
confronted a phalanx of sabres with a daub of 
the Madonna. But the Turks met not every- 
where such craven foes. Venice and the knights 
of Rhodes and of Malta wrote their own brilliant 
page in history. John Huniades, with his brave 
Hungarians, baffled them for many years, falling 
gloriously at last in the siege of Belgrade. The 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 39 

perverse pets of Turkish nurseries were terrified 
into obedience by his name, as were the Scottish 
children by that of the Black Douglas. Scander- 
beg wrested from them by a daring stratagem 
his native Albania, and aided by his martial 
mountaineers, long defied that most redoubta- 
ble of Sultans, Mahomet II. Three thousand 
turbaned heads fell, it was said, by his single 
hand, and when the tidings of his death arrived, 
Mahomet, laying aside his Oriental immobility, 
actually danced for joy. Such was the prestige 
of this valorous patriot, that the Janizaries, forc- 
ing open his sepulchre, divided his bones into 
small fragments, and wore them encased in 
bracelets as amulets to inspire courage. The 
fall of Constantinople was delayed fifty years 
by the capture of Bajazet by Tamerlane, but its 
doom was written, said the Turks, in the pages 
of the Koran. The territory of the Ceesars was 
now reduced to the pitiful limit of sixteen miles. 
Monks and emperors, courtiers and clergy, in- 
sanely absorbed in political factions and religious 
polemics, drank the wines of Samos to the im- 
age of the Virgin, and helplessly waited for 
angelic aid. The Christian nations were busy 
with their civil wars, or indifferent to the fate of 
the last stronghold of the Greeks; and thus, when 
the Ottoman fleet triumphantly sailed up the 



40 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Bosphorus, and the troops of Mahomet unfurled 
the crescent before the gate of St. Romanus 
only four Genoese ships came to the rescue of 
the besieged. Two hundred and fifty thousand 
Turks swept the city with the weapons of both 
ancient and modern warfare — gunpowder, batter- 
ing rams, and liquid fire; and after forty days 
the Hippodrome, and the church of St. Sophia, 
the treasures of Roman, of Grecian, and of 
Egyptian art, and the wealth of the Byzantine 
libraries passed into Saracen hands. Unlike Boni- 
face VIIL, who, with the tiara on his head, and 
the keys and the cross in either hand, had " lived 
a Pope and would die a Pope," the last of a 
hundred emperors, nobler in death than in life, 
flinging from him the imperial mantle, died 
with heroic dignity among the common soldiers, 
and was distinguished in the heaps of slain 
only by the golden eagles on his shoes. 

Still fulfilling their predestined career, the 
Turks, in the sixteenth century, were the objects 
of universal respect and fear. Solyman II. dic- 
tated to the several monarchs of Europe, in terms 
which though very serious then, now provoke a 
smile.* The Emperor of Germany he called 
simply Charles, because, said he, " there cannot 
exist two emperors on the face of the earth ; there 
is only one, namely, the Sultan, just as there is 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 41 

only one God." Said the grand vizier Ibrahim 
to the ambassadors from Germany, " How can 
Charles dare to entitle himself King of Jeru- 
salem ? Does he not know that the Grand 
Signior is master at Jerusalem ? I know that 
Christian nobles visit Jerusalem in the garb of 
beggars : does Charles believe that if he were to 
make the same pilgrimage he would on that 
account be King of Jerusalem? I will for the 
future issue orders forbidding any Christian to 
enter the place." 

To Ferdinand of Austria proposing to petition 
the Sultan for a part of Hungary, the patron- 
izing Ibrahim dictated an appeal in the following 
terms : " King Ferdinand, thy son, considers all 
he possesses as thy property, and every thing in 
his hands as belonging to thee. He was not 
aware that thou wished'st to keep Hungary to 
thyself; for, had he known it, he never would 
have waged war there. But since thou, oh 
father! desirest to have that country, he offers 
thee his best wishes for thy health and pros- 
perity ! " The effect of this enforced humility is 
shown in a letter of Busbeck, the Austrian am- 
bassador : " When I compare the power of the 
Turks with our own, the consideration fills me 
with anxiety and dismay, and a strong convic- 
tion forces itself on my mind that we cannot 



42 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

long resist the destruction that awaits us. They 
possess immense wealth, strength unbroken, a 
perfect knowledge of the art of war, patience 
under every difficulty, union, order, frugality, and 
a constant state of preparation. On our side, 
exhausted finances, universal luxury, our national 
spirit broken by repeated defeats, mutinous sol- 
diers, mercenary officers, intemperance, and a 
total neglect or contempt of military discipline 
fill up the dismal catalogue." * 

* As the centuries file slowly on, it is impressive to note 
how the battlements of pride and the bulwarks of power 
tremble and fall at their approach. 

In 1844 Lord Aberdeen writes to the English minister at 
Constantinople, in allusion to the execution of Christians for 
their religion ; " Your Excellency will therefore press upon 
the Turkish government, that if the Porte has any regard for 
the friendship of England, if it has any hope that in the 
hour of peril or adversity, that protection which has more 
than once saved it from destruction will be extended to it, it 
must renounce absolutely, and without equivocation, the bar- 
barous custom which has called forth this remonstrance." 

The giant has survived his appointed time, and his de- 
crepid existence now hangs upon the fiat of the younger na- 
tions who once paled before his menace, and sued for his 
benijm rejrard. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 43 



CHAPTER III. 

^^^Y)ITH those genial readers who can fill 
even a feeble outline with vivid form 
and color, interblending their own cul- 
tured thought and fancy with the imperfect tracery 
of the written page, let us hope to call forth from 
the misty past the glittering throng that held high 
holiday in Paris, in that far distant summer when 
Philip Sidney, having forsaken, as we have seen, 
the classic calm of the English University, now 
studied a new phase of life. Presented by Sir 
Francis Walsingham to the French king, his 
ingenuous dignity of mien attracted the fancy 
of Charles IX., who testified his regard by ap- 
pointing him to the office of gentleman of his 
bedchamber. 

The disparity of age between these two young 
men was four years, but there can be. found no 
stronger contrast than that which existed be- 
tween their characters. The scion of Valois 
united strange mental and moral contradictions. 
At twelve years he threw off the regency, declar- 



44 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ing that he " would no longer be kept in a box 
like the old jewels of the crown." At twenty- 
two he loved letters, and generously patronized 
literary men, delighted in the mechanical arts, 
and often wrought iron at the forge. Music was 
his passion, and he abstained from fruits and 
swallowed emetics for the improvement of his 
voice — an expedient more innocent than his 
favorite diversion of killing animals, to watch 
their dying agonies. The code of Machiavel* 
was his sacred manual, and the motto of his 
grandfather Louis XL — " He who knows not 
how to dissemble knows not how to reign" — 
was his boasted watchword. The offspring of a 
weak father and a profligate mother, born to 
power, and tutored to its abuse, perverted by 
false theories, blinded by evil examples, desecrat- 
ing his talents to vice, and his tastes to brutality, 
the most lenient look of posterity upon this 
modern Nero is one of pity and disgust. 

" Whether your time call you to live or die, do 
both like a prince," wrote Sidney a few years 
later. " As the sun disdains not to give light to 
the smallest worm, so a virtuous prince protects 

* " A judicious prince will from time to time commit acts 
of wanton cruelty that his subjects may appreciate how much 
they are indebted to him for not being constantly wanton and 
cruet* — Machiavel. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 45 

the life of his meanest subject." " And as he is 
most wise to see what is best, he is most just in 
performing what he sees." " Such a prince es- 
pecially measures his greatness by his goodness ; 
and if for any thing he love greatness, it is 
because therein he may exercise his goodness. 
He makes his life the example of his laws, and 
his laws, as it were, his axioms arising out of his 
deeds." 

We have no record of Sidney's impressions 
of his royal patron, unless we accept these senti- 
ments as an inverted portrait. We readily infer 
from them that his pure mind suffered no distor- 
tion from the flatteries of royal favor, or the 
subtleties of courtly art. 

It was the 22d of August, and all Paris glit- 
tered with pageantry and pomp, and rang with 
festal glee. In the Church of St. Germain 
was solemnized the marriage of King Henry of 
Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France, with 
Marguerite of Valois, sister of Charles IX. The 
bridegroom was handsome, good, and predestined 
to the bravery that long after made his white 
plume a rallying point on the field of Ivry ; for 
he entered the world to the stirring music of a 
martial band, his first draught of life was a sip 
of wine, and with naked feet and bare head he 
sported in childhood with the hardy little peas- 



46 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

antry of his native hills. But, for some unknown 
reason, the fair bride yielded no willing troth. 
When led to the altar, and asked by the priest if 
she consented to the marriage, instead of her 
expected response, an ominous silence ensued. 
The question was repeated, and Charles took 
care to secure her seeming assent, through the 
ludicrous little stratagem of forcing her head 
forward by striking the back of her neck. No 
sentimental union of hearts and hands was this, 
but the forced result of profound political craft. 
On this pivot was to turn the fate of Protestant- 
ism in France. That country had long been, as 
we have seen, the battle-ground of religious fac- 
tion. The Catholics, led by the powerful families 
of Guise and Montmorenci, and the Protestants 
under Coligni, the Conde*s, and the princes of 
Navarre, vibrated between sanguinary feud and 
hollow truce. Fostered by the persecution of 
the two preceding reigns, the faith of the Reform- 
ers had spread rapidly through the provinces, and 
many men of high rank and talent defiantly 
exchanged the worship of the Host for the study 
of the Bible. Sincere in devotion, pure in pur- 
pose, loyal as citizens and as subjects, the Hugue- 
nots asked only liberty of conscience and the 
privilege of prayer. But, at length, stung by 
insult, and exasperated by injury, the spirit of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 47 

religion was merged in the spirit of resistance, 
and they were forced to the belligerent attitude 
of a hostile army. Philip II. and the Pope had 
long looked with malignant alarm upon their 
rapid increase in numbers and strength; aided, 
as they sometimes were, by troops and supplies 
from the Queen of England, and encouraged by 
the ever manifest sympathy of her subjects. The 
spirit of reform seemed to rise from every conflict 
with loftier and more stately crest. It regarded 
the howls of the Vatican as those of a decrepit 
lion in his den. The wily bigot of Spain was a 
more potent foe. Allied by marriage with the 
royal family of Valois, of the same faith, and the 
same unscrupulous perfidy, his inexorable designs 
upon the heretics of the Netherlands obviously 
reflected upon the heretics of France. Seven 
years before, the Duke of Alva and Queen 
Isabella met, in private conference at Bayonne, 
Catherine de Medici and Charles IX. The Duke, 
always equal to enterprises of colossal crime, was 
empowered by his royal master to concoct a 
scheme for the simultaneous massacre of the 
Protestants, throughout France and the Low 
Countries. The plan was, this time, a failure. 
The Queen Mother, true to her favorite maxim 
— " divide in order to govern " — preferred to em- 
ploy her Medicean arts on the alternate factions, 



48 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

as might best serve her own purpose of domin- 
ion. To preserve the balance of power by curb- 
ing the ascendant interest, she lent her influence 
sometimes to a Conde, sometimes to a Guise. 
But the Spanish leaven worked, and the crude 
thought swelled to consistent shape. In 1570, 
Charles proclaimed a general amnesty. The most 
specious promises of pardon, and of the free exer- 
cise of their religion, were extended to the Hu- 
guenots. The King said that the august mar- 
riage was intended as an additional assurance 
of his sincerity and good-will towards his heretic 
people, to ratify the peace now of two years dura- 
tion. All the noted Protestants in the realm, from 
the ancient and proud noblesse to those of recent 
rank and reputation, were invited to Paris to 
witness the ceremony which should absorb for- 
ever all party animosities. Lulled into security 
by these plausible professions, they now thronged 
the gay city in vast and joyous companies, and 
fearlessly mingled in its nuptial revelries. Fetes, 
dances, and masked balls filled with Circean 
draughts the intoxicated nights; tournaments 
and other equestrian sports chased the fleeting 
days. The Louvre offered its fascinations to 
the veteran soldiers of hard-fought battles; 
youthful cavaliers won new conquests among 
the flirting beauties, who, adorned with huge 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 49 

fardingales, tortuous stays, and Spanish cosmet- 
ics, came in highborn dignity something short 
of the English ladies of the same period. Here 
stood a stately group of Huguenot lords, talking 
in low tones of the recent defeat at Mons of 
brave Count Louis of Nassau, and mourning 
that the aid kindly sent by their king had failed 
against Spanish guile. And there were men of 
letters clustered around Ronsard and Montaigne ; 
and here, again, was the English minister Wal- 
singham, placid and composed as ever, but men- 
tally striving to divine what new intrigue could 
be hidden beneath this fantastic show. The Lords 
Burleigh and Leicester had been invited by the 
King, but fortunately stayed away, for it was 
shrewdly guessed afterward, that two so powerful 
Protestants had been better off across the Chan- 
nel than in the treacherous atmosphere of Paris. 
Sidney looked with charmed eye upon this 
rare assemblage of princely personages, most of 
whom, though but few years older than himself, 
had already achieved distinction in either camp 
or court. Men, in that day, entered early on the 
duties of active life. Assassination, war, and 
unskilful medical science, swept rapidly through 
the ranks of manhood, and youth was summoned 
to the vacancy. Sir Henry Sidney, as his son 
remembered, had been sent on a mission to 



50 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

France, at the age of twenty-one. First in this 
brilliant throng, was Henry of Navarre, with his 
suite of eight hundred gentlemen. 

" Oh was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war, 
As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre." 

The magnetism which attracts two kindred 
natures, revealing to each the mental harmony 
unobserved by others, drew silently its mysterious 
cords around the youthful Sidney and the gallant 
prince. A true friendship, merging in its sweet 
solvent all exterior distinctions, was formed be- 
tween them, and perpetuated through life. 

" See, thro' plots and counterplots — 
Thro' gain and loss — thro' glory and disgrace — 
Along the plains where passionate Discord rears 
Eternal Babel — still the holy stream 
Of human happiness glides on ! " 

Sidney doubtless met the Admiral Coligni, the 
stanch old champion of the faith he loved, and 
the indomitable leader of its armies, long hon- 
ored with high trust, but preserving through his 
integrity and hospitality the narrow limit of his 
ancestral acres. The thoughtful Prince of Conde, 
cousin of Navarre, was another Huguenot of 
note; Montgomery, too, who perhaps felt little 
pleasure in the revels of the court, since his fatal 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 51 

lance had pierced the golden visor of Henry II., 
in a tournament, twelve years before. In Mornay 
Du Plessis, who, though only twenty-three years 
old, was already distinguished for his learning, 
his sagacity, and his bold defence of Protestantism, 
Sidney found another friend. These grave men, 
and others there, eyed with distrust the ostenta- 
tious gayeties thus forced upon them, and some- 
times thought, perhaps, that Catholic faith to 
heretics might resemble that of the Milanese to 
Frederick Barbarossa, — " Remember, if you have 
our oath, we have not sworn to keep it." 

Conspicuous on the other side were the military 
stars, — De Retz, De Ferriere, and the Marshal 
Tavannes, whose heroic feats at the battle of 
Renti so delighted Francis I., that, rushing 
through the heat and smoke of the engagement, 
he tore from his own neck the order of St. Michael, 
and threw it around that of his brave general. 
Yet more prominent was the Duke of Anjou, the 
hero of Jarnac and Moncontour, and recently, at 
the instance of his ambitious mother, a suitor of 
Queen Elizabeth — a reluctant suitor, too, for 
her midsummer charms seemed to his nineteen 
springs a distasteful incumbrance upon the crown 
of England. But preeminent among them all, 
was the stately and handsome Duke of Guise, 
one of the most keen and daring spirits of the 



52 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

day, having numbered only twenty-two years, but 
already renowned for his skilful defence of Poictiers, 
and a perfect representative of his bold, turbulent, 
and ambitious family.* The keystone of this 

* Several stories are told of this Duke of Guise, illustra- 
tive of his imperious will and unfaltering decision of character. 
He had married a princess of Cleves, equally remarkable for 
her beauty and her levity. The patience of the Duke and 
the faith of the public having been considerably transcended 
in the very empresse regard between herself and a young 
man named St. Maigrin, she was requested by her husband 
to decline attending a ball and supper given by the Queen- 
Mother, in which the ladies of the court were to be served by 
their favourite cavaliers, dressed in the livery of their mis- 
tresses. The Duke reasonably suggested that additional 
scandal might arise from the presence of the Duchess under 
the escort of St. Maigrin, and earnestly desired her to remain 
at home. The obstinate beauty — much like those of a later 
day — persisted in going to the ball, and did not return until 
six o'clock in the morning. She had just sought repose in 
bed, when the door very slowly opened, and her irate lord 
deliberately walked in, followed by an aged servant, bearing 
a bowl of broth. Locking the door, he solemnly advanced to 
the bedside, and addressed her in portentous tones : " Mad- 
ame, although you refused last night to do what I desired, you 
shall do it now. Your dancing must have heated you a little, 
and I insist upon your instantly drinking this broth that I 
have prepared for you." The Duchess burst into tears, and 
feeling that the poisoned chalice, as she supposed it to be, was 
inevitable, begged the privilege of seeing her confessor. 
This was refused by the Duke, who having compelled her to 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 53 

social arch was Catherine de Medici. The 
craft of her country, the pride of her family, her 
own thirst for power, her reckless will, her placid 
dissimulation, were painted in her fine, well-pro- 
swallow the draught, left the room, again locking the door. 
After four hours he returned. " I fear," said he, in a softened 
tone, " that you have passed these hours unpleasantly. I also 
fear that I have been the cause. Judge then of all the hours 
that you have made me spend as unpleasantly as these. Be 
comforted, however. You have nothing to fear. I am willing 
in my turn to believe that I have nothing to apprehend. But 
for the future, if you please, we will avoid playing these little 
tricks upon each other." 

The Duke was once setting out on a dangerous expedition, 
when his brother, the Duke of Mayenne, urged him to delib- 
erate. " Brother," replied he, " be assured that what I could 
not resolve upon in a quarter of an hour I could never resolve 
upon, though I were to spend my whole life in the effort." 

Dancing one night at the Louvre, a lady said to him, in a 
low tone, " It is really very fine for you to be amusing your- 
self here, when your enemies are taking from you the town 
of Meaux." Startled by the news, he yet preserved his self- 
possession, and having learned all he could from his fair in- 
formant, who was in the secrets of the opposite party, he ordered 
one of his officers in waiting to have ready for him, at the 
Hotel de Guise, a fleet Arabian horse. Dancing until the ball 
was over, he then went home, and to bed, quietly dismissing 
his attendants. As soon as they had left him, he rose, and 
mounting his steed, rode to Meaux, a distance of thirty miles. 
He found the city in confusion, and his partisans in prison, 
but hastily collecting his soldiers, he released the prisoners, 



54 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

nounced features, and spoke in every movement 
of her queenly form. Uniting, like her son, odd 
contrasts of taste and employment, she was a 
liberal patroness of literature and the arts, excelled 
in conversation, and was equally devoted to em- 
broidery and intrigue. France had been happier 
if the Queen Regent had contented herself with 
plots in silk and conspiracies in tapestry, and the 
device on the ship that landed her at Marseilles as 
the bride of Henry II. (representing the sun, with 
the motto underneath, " I bring light, and fine 
weather,") had been a less bitter jest. She pos- 
sessed the restless, vindictive cruelty, without the 
courage, of Brunehaut of Austrasia, but her mas- 
ter passion was the love of dominion. Her 
ascendency over the young king was as absolute 
as that of Blanche of Castile over St. Louis ; not 
that Charles gave to her either affection or esteem, 
but that, to a mind at once unreasoning, timid, 
fitful, and impatient, concession was easier than 

and harangued the citizens in the market place with so happy 
a mingling of command and persuasion that, like Richard II. 
in Wat Tyler's insurrection, he swayed the rebels to his 
absolute control. 

His abilities and popularity afterwards excited the jealousy 
of Henry III., who ordered his assassination, and exclaimed, as 
he saw his majestic form rigid in death, " Mon Dieu, comme 
il est grand, etant mort ! " 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 55 

resistance. " I know not whom to trust," said the 
hapless sovereign, " my secretaries of state are not 
faithful to me ; the Comte de Retz is a Spaniard ; 
my brother Anjou is full of Italian deceit; my 
mother, of turbulent self-will." He might have 
learned the negative lesson — whom not to trust — 
from Philip Sidney, whose keen observation 
gathered from these motley scenes many a note 
for future thought. " Take heed," said he, " how 
you place your confidence upon any other ground 
than proof of virtue. Neither length of acquaint- 
ance, mutual secrecy, nor height of benefits, can 
bind a vicious heart; no man being good to 
others that is not good in himself." 

When Pius V. sent his legate to remonstrate 
with the French king on the marriage of his 
sister with a heretic, the latter taking from his 
finger a diamond ring, and giving it to the mes- 
senger, replied, " I wish that I could explain my 
purpose now ; but his Holiness will one day be 
the first to praise my piety and zeal." Younger 
in treachery than his mother and her confed- 
erates, Charles had regarded with horror the 
proposed massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

" The colour of the king did come and go 
Between his purpose and his conscience." 

Maddened by taunt, and overpowered by en- 



56 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

treaty, the latent demon at last came forth. 
" I consent," he cried, " but let not a single 
Huguenot remain alive, to reproach me with 
the deed." 

In due time, all the Catholics in Paris were in 
the secret, and never was secret better kept. It 
seems strange that no friend or kinsman should 
have relented at last, to save the innocent and 
the dear ; but no cruelty is so remorseless as the 
cruelty of the bigot. The provost of Paris, and 
his principal officers, were at first obstinate in 
resistance to the scheme, but were soon awed by 
the threats of Tavannes. The sky was not all 
sunny to the doomed Protestants. Clouds of 
gloom and distrust hung darkly in the distance, 
visible to prescient eyes, and heralded by warn- 
ing voices. Against counsel, menace, and en- 
treaty, the King of Navarre sought his promised 
bride : remonstrances and prayers followed Col- 
igni to the very gates of Paris. As the latter 
bade adieu to his wife at Chatillon, one of his 
faithful peasants fell at his feet, — " Oh good 
master, why will you throw yourself away? I 
shall never see you again ! You will die, and 
all who go with you." A captain of Langorain, 
who accompanied him thither, took his leave in 
a few days with the ominous suggestion, " There 
is too much caressing here. I had rather be safe 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 57 

with fools, than perish with those who think 
themselves wise." Although to these prophetic 
surmises was added the startling suspicion that 
the recent death of Jeanne of Navarre, mother 
of the king, resulted from the poisoned odor of 
a pair of gloves bought from Rene, the perfumer 
of Catherine de Medici, and the fact of an at- 
tempt upon Coligni's own life, by a pistol fired 
into his carriage, — yet the good Admiral was 
entirely assured by the flatteries of Charles. 
" He could not believe in perfidy at twenty- 
two," says Martin ; " it seemed to him that the 
virtues implanted by nature had gradually van- 
quished the evils of education, and that the blood 
of a noble warrior race spoke more loudly than 
the lessons of Birague and Des Gondi." Mean- 
while, this scion of " a noble warrior race " 
rehearsed the anticipated excitement of St. Bar- 
tholomew in a daily massacre of rabbits, and 
each night he met in secret conclave the master 
tragedians of the infernal drama thus contemp- 
tibly typified. Anjou, Angouleme, the Duke of 
Guise, and the Queen Mother, with her four 
intimate counsellors — De Retz, Tavannes, De 
Nevers, and Birague — stole from midnight mirth 
to midnight murder ; — one hour figuring in the 
mask of folly and the next in that of crime ; 
and, as hilarious voices rang through echoing 



58 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

corridors and gorgeous salons, deep bitter tones 
in an upper chamber breathed the doom of the 
revellers below. 

The fatal hour approached. It was Sunday- 
eve, and just six days after the royal marriage. 
The Catholic citizens, marked by a white scarf 
upon the left arm and a white cross upon the 
hat, were assembled at midnight at the Hotel de 
Ville. Twelve hundred arquebusiers were dis- 
tributed along the Seine, through the streets and 
in the Huguenot quarter. The Duke of Guise, 
frenzied with the memory of his father's fate, 
with hatred for his natural enemies, the heretics, 
and with ambition as the great Catholic leader, 
commanded the deadly brigade. 

The king retired to his room attended by sev- 
eral Protestant lords. He could not stifle a 
reluctant pang as he looked upon these brave 
and genial companions, and especially Roche- 
foucault, with whom he often laughed and jested 
until night waned into morning. He would 
have persuadf "" him to remain in the safety of 
the royal chambti*. But Rochefoucault, little 
dreaming the penalty of refusal, declined the in- 
vitation, and, with edifying piety, the King ex- 
claimed as he departed, " I see God wills that 
he should perish ! " In the chamber of Catherine 
de Medici, as the Queen of Navarre offered the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 59 

good-night kiss to her sister, the Duchess of 
Lorraine, the latter burst into tears, and passion- 
ately exclaimed, " My sister, do not go ! " The 
Queen Mother frowned, and calling the Duchess 
aside, forbade her to detain her sister. " You 
will sacrifice her," cried the Duchess ; " if any 
thing is discovered, they will take revenge on 
her." " Whatever happens" was the answer, " she 
must go, lest her stay excite suspicion." Thus 
were the sweet charities of love sacrificed on the 
altar of hate. 

The fearful parts had all been assigned. The 
players waited, in mute suspense, the signal stroke 
of the great clock of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. 
The secret council were assembled for the last 
time; the plot was finished; and, with suppressed 
tones and furtive glances, they too listened for 
the knell of death. The city lay hushed in that 
oppressive stillness which precedes a hurricane — 
the victims, in unsuspecting sleep, the execution- 
ers, on stealthy guard. Suddenly one deep vibra- 
tion of the ponderous bell broke upon the silent 
air, followed by the sharp sound of a pistol. 
The lingering spark of humanity in the wretched 
king now flickered in expiring light. 

" He started, like a guilty thing, 
Upon a fearful summons." 



60 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

In trembling repentance, he sped a messengei 
to the Hotel de Guise, to recall the mandate. It 
was too late. Already the fiery Duke paced the 
court below Coligni's window, impatient for the 
tidings of his death. " It is God that calls us," 
said the good Admiral to his terrified attendants, 
as the clash of arms and the fierce shouts of men 
broke upon their slumbers ; " I have long been 
ready to die ; save yourselves, if possible." 
" Besme ! " cried Guise to the German assassin, 
" have you finished ? Then throw him from the 
window that we may see for ourselves." " Cour- 
age, friends," shouted Angouleme, as he spurned 
the mangled body with his foot ; " we have 
begun well, let us also finish well." Thus fell 
one of the best and bravest heroes of the age. 
Eminent, like Martinuzzi of Hungary, as a 
patriot and a soldier, he met a similar death with 
equal intrepidity. 

The Comte de Rochefoucault was roused by 
a heavy knock upon his door; and, six masked 
men entering, he fancied that the King, in frolic 
mood, was visiting him in disguise. His merry 
question was answered by a dagger buried in his 
heart, Teligni, son-in-law of the Admiral, brave 
and universally beloved, sought refuge on a 
roof. He was pursued by some of the courtiers, 
but they had not the courage to take a life 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. d 

so dear, and the deed was left for the guards of 
Anjou. 

And now through the quivering air rang the 
tumult of the hosts of hell — the discharge of 

o 

fire-arms, the clang of bells, the shouts of the 
pursuers, the shrieks of the flying, the piteous 
cries of the wounded and the dying. Mangled 
bodies fell heavily from the windows ; dissevered 
limbs strewed the streets ; crimson streams hur- 
ried to the crimson river. No innocence, no age 
found mercy. The dead soldier floated down the 
Seine, side by side with the cradle of the living 
infant. Even childhood caught the mania of 
murder. The boy of ten years old strangled the 
infant of as many months. Nor were the white 
cross and the scarf a sure protection. Family 
feuds, the rivalries of love, the jealousies of place, 
now found quick redress among the Catholic 
ranks. Sons shot the fathers who had lived too 
long ; heirs claimed by the sword their tardy in- 
heritance ; the discharge of a pistol would liqui- 
date a debt ; the stroke of a poniard would settle 
a disputed suit. Carts rumbling over the stones, 
freighted with the dying and the dead, encoun- 
tered carts laden with their pillaged spoils. From 
the windows of the Louvre, Charles IX. continu- 
ally howled, "Kill! kill!" while Catherine and 
her maids of honor laughed with ribald jest over 



02 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the corpses of the gallant men with whom they 
had danced and feasted a few hours before. 
Woman's tenderness and man's humanity were 
alike palsied in these orgies of the fiends. 
Science furnished no shield ; art, no exemption. 
Goujon, the " Correggio of sculpture," was 
slain with the chisel in his hand, and his eye 
intent upon the half-carved statue. Ramus, the 
learned philosopher who first dared to repudiate 
the doctrines of Aristotle, was found in his 
hidden retreat by his rival Charpentier. Ramus 
offered all his fortune as the price of his life 
The ransom was accepted, but the bond was 
sealed with death. " Bleed ! bleed ! " shouted 
Tavannes; " bleeding is as good in August as in 
May ! " Navarre and the Prince of Conde were 
spared only by a superstition of the Queen 
Mother. A friendly astrologer had predicted that 
they would in future be loyal and pacific, and 
the prophecy saved their lives. But though ex- 
empted from the general carnage, they were 
compelled to abjure their faith. " Death, Mass, 
or the Bastile ! " cried the King, as they were 
brought before him. The young Baron de Rosni, 
afterwards the illustrious Sully, was saved by 
flying to the college of Bourgogne, with a Catho- 
lic book under his arm. Montgomery escaped, in 
night apparel, through one of the city gates, and 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 63 

rode without pause a hundred miles, until he 
reached his own chateau. Several illustrious 
lives were saved by a similar flight, and hundreds 
of Huguenots found refuge in the hospitable 
homes of England.* 

Seven days the unheeded sun glared on the car- 
nival of terror, and seven nights the stars looked 

* Merlin, the chaplain of Coligni, concealed himself in a 
hay-loft ; and it was recorded in the next synod that he sub- 
sisted for some time on eggs, daily laid by a hen which had 
made its nest near his place of safety. 

Martin brightens these dark annals by a story of generous 
greatness, which carries us back, as he says, to " the heroes 
of Scandinavia," or reminds us perhaps of the kingly conduct 
of Edward III. to Eustace de Eibaumont, or that of the Black 
Prince at Poictiers. Two gentlemen of different faith, and 
from distant provinces, now chanced to meet in Paris. A 
deadly feud had long existed between them, which they 
had often sought occasion to settle by single combat. Reg- 
nier, who was a Protestant, felt that his death was inevit- 
able, when Vezins suddenly entered his apartment with a 
drawn sword in his hand, accompanied by several armed 
men. Falling on his knees, Regnier offered the last prayer 
of the dying. " Rise, and follow me," cried his foe, conduct- 
ing him to a spot where stood two horses, and a company of 
mounted attendants. Regnier, ignorant of the fate awaiting 
him, was led in profound silence, during a ride of several 
days, to the gates of his own chateau. " I present you," said 
Vezins, " with your steed, and with your life ; but do not 
therefore imagine that I ask your friendship. You still are 
free to be friend or foe." 



04 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

down upon the ghastly dead. The royal orders 
had extended through France, and with few ex- 
ceptions they were obeyed. Not less than fifty 
thousand souls in the provinces, and ten thou- 
sand in the city of Paris, bore to distant spheres 
their fearful witness of the tragedy of St. Bar- 
tholomew. The tidings flew to every palace, 
remote and near, and while Protestant Europe 
was paralyzed with horror, Spain expressed her 
exultation ; the plaudits of the Pope were sent 
with jubilant haste to the French king, and 
paintings, poems, and medals, commemorative 
of the pious deed, were added to the treasures of 
the Vatican. Maximilian II., though the father- 
in-law of Charles, openly declared his indigna- 
tion ; and the Court of England treated Fenelon, 
the French ambassador, with marked resentment. 
Though long a favourite with the ladies and 
courtiers, they received him in deep mourning, 
with countenances of reproachful gloom, and 
deigned neither look nor word as he passed 
through the rooms leading to the presence-cham- 
ber. Thousands of brave Englishmen burned 
with impatience to hasten to the relief of the 
intrepid Huguenots, who had now ensconced 
themselves in the stronghold of Rochelle. But 
the wary Elizabeth, true to her usual impassive 
policy, and conscious of her perilous position, as 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. f,5 

a solitary Protestant sovereign against the per- 
fidious trio of Rome, France, and Spain, quieted 
her conscience by a few grave animadversions 
upon the perjury of Charles, and calmed her sub- 
jects by the promise of secret aid to their de- 
spairing brethren. 




6(5 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 




CHAPTER IV. 

HE signal-bell of St. Germain was Philip 
Sidney's first warning of the unparalleled 
coup d'etat that wakened France upon that 
u awful morn." The penetrative art of the wily 
English minister had, for once, been baffled by 
Medicean craft, and thus his countrymen were 
all unconscious of the sleeping volcano on which 
they trod in fearless and festive measure. His 
house was their immediate refuge, and there Sid- 
ney remained until, the personal danger being 
past, he could pursue his intended travels. Wal- 
singham, who seemed to be much impressed with 
what he termed, in a letter to Lord Leicester, the 
rare gifts of his nephew, made every provision for 
the safety of the wanderer, and secured for him 
through Lorrain, the companionship of the good 
Dean of Winchester. Perhaps a prophetic in- 
stinct may have warmed the heart of Sir Francis, 
and dimly revealed in the distance a closer link 
between himself and his youthful guest. For even 
on this blood-stained soil, were sown the seeds of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (57 

life and love ; and here Sidney first saw, we are 
told, his future wife, the Lady Frances Walsing- 
ham, then a beautiful child, whose passionate 
grief for the Huguenots called forth his sympa- 
thizing and tender regard. 

From the brief records of our hero's progress, 
we learn of his passing through Strasburg and 
Heidelberg to Frankfort ; pausing, we may be- 
lieve, in the former city, at least long enough to 
bestow a tribute of admiration upon the cele- 
brated cathedral, with its elaborate and delicately 
wrought tower, its famous clock, and its vast 
window of richly painted glass, then recently 
completed. In Heidelberg too, that picturesque 
old town, nestling in the vine-clad valley of the 
Neckar, then flourishing with commerce and un- 
injured by the bombardments and assaults of 
later years, we may fancy his visits to the an- 
cient castle, the residence of the Electors Pala- 
tine, interesting both from its varied fortunes 
and its architectural grandeur ; thence to the 
Church of St. Peter, to whose door Jerome of 
Prague attached his theses, and expounded them 
to the crowd in the churchyard adjoining ; and 
again we may see him in the venerable Univer- 
sity, one of the oldest in Germany, gazing with 
a student's awe upon the valuable books and 
manuscripts, which, in the scarcity of straw, 



68 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

were afterwards ignobly used in the thirty years 
war, to litter the cavalry of the conqueror Tilly. 
Sidney's stay in Frankfort was of several 
months duration. He resided with Andrew 
Wechel, a noted printer of that day, and also 
a man of learning, for in the sixteenth century 
printers were scholars too, and their houses were 
the favorite resorts of men of taste and letters. 
Here Sidney formed an acquaintance with Hu- 
bert Languet, an estimable and accomplished 
French gentleman, lately a professor of civil 
law in the University of Padua, a friend of 
Melancthon, and an honored confidant of Gus- 
tavus of Sweden, and of William of Orange. 
His graceful urbanity of manner, extraordinary 
conversational gifts, marvellous erudition, ex- 
tended political knowledge, and unpretending 
-goodness, rendered him one of the brightest or- 
naments of the times. To him Sidney was in- 
debted for much instruction in the governments, 
laws, and usages of nations, by which he was 
fitted for the duties of a diplomatist and states- 
man ; and with unwearied heart and watchful 
eye this kind Mentor sought in his two years' 
abode upon the continent, to guard him from evil 
and temptation, to fortify and exalt his native 
virtues, and to guide his aspiring mind. It was 
high praise to win the warm and lasting friend- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. gg 

ship of this distinguished man, who. first at- 
tracted by Sidney's countenance and discourse, 
afterwards said of him, " That day on which I 
first beheld him with my eyes, shone propitious 
to me." He is thus gratefully celebrated by Sir 
Philip in the Arcadia: 

" The song I sang old Languet had me taught, 
Languet, the shepherd best swift Ister knew, 
For darkly read, and hating what is naught , 
For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true, 
With his sweet skill my soulless youth he drew 
To have a feeling taste of Him that sits 
Beyond the heaven, far more beyond your wit. 

His good strong staff my slippery youth upbore ; 
He still hoped well, because I loved truth." 

The letters of Languet to Sir Philip, written 
in Latin, have been much commended for their 
admirable sentiments and classic elegance of 
style. Unfortunately, but a small portion of Sid- 
ney's share in the correspondence has been pre- 
served. The table-talk at the house of Andrew 
Wechel would be to us a pleasant record, but we 
are left to fancy the sparkling conversations of 
the erudite printer and his guests ; how they 
talked of the mystical Platonism and the Aris- 
totelian logic which divided the philosophy of 
Europe, yet untouched by the Promethean fire 



70 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

of Bacon and Des Cartes ; of the struggling 
hopes of their revered religion, in these tempest- 
uous times ; of Italian literature, still irradiating 
Christendom with the glory, which, reflected 
from the two preceding centuries, was not yet 
sensibly obscured by the meretricious taste and 
the political despotism that were beginning to 
shed their baneful influence upon the present 
era ; of Venetian splendor, of Roman art, and 
of a thousand other themes that kindled the en- 
thusiasm of the ardent Sidney. With reluctant 
adieus, he at last severed himself from the de- 
lightful society at Frankfort, and, laden with rich 
memories and garnered lore ; proceeded to Vienna, 
in September, 1573. 

The capital of the Germanic Empire could not 
then boast the attractive features that have since 
rendered it one of the most brilliant cities of 
Europe. But the famous Church of St. Stephen, 
and some other types of that stately and gor- 
geous architecture whose creation ceased with 
the age of Christian idolatry that inspired it; 
the University and the imperial Library, the 
most distinguished in Germany save that of 
Heidelberg, were objects of interest to our trav- 
eller ; as also were, both here and in the other 
cities of his sojourn, the works of the old German 
painters, so remarkable for their microscopic ex- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 7] 

actness and minute elaboration, of Von Eyck, 
who revolutionized his art by the introduction 
of oils, of Kranach, of Holbein, and of Albert 
Durer, the Raphael of his country, and the in- 
ventor of engravings upon copper. 

Sidney here applied himself with especial zeal 
to the study of those accomplishments which 
were deemed essential to the finish of a high- 
born cavalier ; fencing, the use of arms in tour- 
nament and tilt, tennis playing, music, and, 
above all, horsemanship. His preceptor in the 
latter art was the chief equerry in the Emperor's 
stables, to whose eloquent partiality for his pro- 
fession Sidney thus alludes in his Defence of 
Poesy. 

" When the right vertuous E. W.* and I were 
at the Emperor's court together, we gave our- 
selves to learn horsemanship of John Pietro 
Pugliano, one that with great commendation 
held the place of Esquire in his Stable ; and he, 
according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, 
did not only afford us the demonstration of his 
practice, but sought to enrich our minds with 
the contemplation therein, which he thought 
most precious. But with none I remember mine 
eares were at any time more loaden, than when 

* Edward Wotton, the brother of Sir Henry Wotton. 



72 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

(either angered with slow payment, or moved 
with our learner-like admiration) hee exercised 
his speech in the praise of his faculty. He said 
souldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, 
and horsemen the noblest of souldiers. He said 
they were the masters of war, and ornaments of 
peace, speedy goers and strong abiders, triumph- 
ers both in camps and courts ; nay, to so un- 
beleeved a point, he proceeded, as that no earthly 
thing bred such wonder to a Prince, as to be a 
good horseman. Then would he adde certaine 
praises, by telling what a peerless beast the horse 
was, the only serviceable Courtier without flat- 
tery, the beast of most beauty, faith fuln esse, 
courage, and such more, that if I had not bin a 
peece of a logician before I came to him, I think 
he would have pers waded me to have wished 
myself a horse." 

To Venice, the brilliant centre of taste and 
fashion, and still the proud claimant of a mari- 
time sovereignty that was rapidly passing into 
other hands, Philip Sidney next directed his way. 
What motley pictures of the past and present 
must have flitted before his eye as he stood upon 
the Rialto, or trod the tesselated pavement of St. 
Mark, — from the far-off day when the fugitive 
fishermen of these sterile isles sold their humble 
wares upon the neighboring coasts, on, through 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 73 

centuries of industry and toil, until the flag of 
the fearless republic floated defiantly over every 
sea, and commanded respect from every people. 
He looked back upon the dreary ages when dark- 
ness brooded over Europe, and Art had taken 
refuge in the city of Constantine, and saw in 
Venice the only causeway through which the 
gorgeous trappings and luxurious commodities 
of the East were conveyed to Germany and 
France. He saw the mountains of Istria fur- 
nishing flocks for the woollen fabrics of this busy 
people; the coast of Frioul, mulberry trees for 
their silks; the islands of the Levant, their sugar- 
canes and wines ; their ships and their treasures 
more than once gladly borrowed by kings and 
nobles, during the wars in Palestine ; and work- 
men from Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, finding 
rich reward in the reproduction of their classic 
models of sculpture, while antique gems, mosaics 
and bronzes, the marble of Palladio and the 
canvas of Titian, now enriched their churches 
and their palaces. Unaffected alike by Oriental 
voluptuousness and by Gothic barbarism, their 
prosperity and their refinement kept equal pace ; 
while the jealous, relentless despotism of their 
government repressed domestic treason and pre- 
cluded foreign guile. 

But the tide had even now turned, and was 



74 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

sweeping away from the mistress of the seas the 
golden treasures of her youth. 

The discovery of America, and of a new pas- 
sage to the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope 
divertinef from the Adriatic the merchandise of 
Asia, the jealousy of Spain, the commercial 
rivalry of other nations, the inroads of the Turks, 
and the loss of Cyprus and Candia, were the 
causes of a decline which neither enterprise could 
arrest, nor vigilance avert. 

In 1574, Venice was the neutral ground on 
which men of all creeds and countries could meet 
safely, and with pleasure ; it was still the emporium 
of trade, and the rendezvous of poets, painters, 
and sculptors. Flitting about its canals, were 
young cavaliers from England and France, bar- 
tering for the silks and laces indispensable to 
their attire, or for the polished weapons and 
gilded leather equally essential to their equestrian 
display. Turbaned Turks, now on an embassy 
from Constantinople, commanded respectful no- 
tice in the halls of audience ; for the Doge and 
the Council of Ten feared nothing so much as 
these insatiable foes. Military men from Stock- 
holm and Madrid exchanged admiration over the 
magnificent arsenal from whose ramparts the 
gigantic granite lions of the Piraeus, trophies of 
Venetian conquest in Athens, looked down upon 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 75 

the harbor. Here were sixteen thousand work- 
men, constantly employed in replenishing vast 
magazines with all the different pieces requisite 
in the construction of vessels ; the immense foun- 
deries, under the hereditary superintendence of 
the family of Alberghetti, and, on the same grand 
scale, the rope-walks in which the best cables in 
the world were made. The glass-works of Mu- 
rano furnished mirrors to the vanity of all Europe. 
The lovers of art found endless delight in the rich 
paintings, which, although lacking the anatomical 
accuracy, perspective skill, and comprehensive 
grandeur of the Florentine school, and the truth- 
ful design, matchless grace, and ideal beauty of 
the Roman, were celebrated for their brilliant col- 
oring and harmonious blending of tints. Reject- 
ing the religious and mystical subjects, the Saints 
and Madonnas, to which art was usually conse- 
crated, the Venetian painters followed the popular 
fancy for florid decoration, and immortalized on 
the walls of St. Mark and in the Ducal Palace 
the grave senators and voluptuous beauties, the 
gorgeous festivals and processions that gave to 
Venice the air of an Oriental city. Bellini had, a 
hundred years before, adorned the council cham- 
ber with the pictured achievements of the proud 
Republic. Giorgione, his illustrious pupil and 
the teacher of Titian, had left his masterpiece, 



76 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

" Christ carrying the Cross," in the Church of 
St. Roco. Pordenone had painted his frescoes in 
the Church of St. Stefanp, with sword by his 
side, to protect himself against the jealousy of 
his rival, the impetuous Titian. Andrea Schia- 
vone, rescued by the latter from the obscurity of 
sign-painting, was living, and in poverty ; for he 
shared the fate, so often allotted to genius, of con- 
temporary neglect and posthumous praise. Paul 
Veronese was now at the height of his brilliant 
reputation, and Palm a was embellishing the pal- 
ace of St. Mark. Zuccaro, who afterwards so 
splendidly decorated the hall of the Grand Coun- 
cil that he was rewarded with the order of knight- 
hood, was at present in England, painting the 
portraits of Elizabeth, and some of her courtiers. 
Yet more conspicuous than these was Tintoretto, 
whose bold, rapid, fantastic pencil procured for 
him the sobriquet of " II Furioso." His efforts 
to combine Florentine grandeur with Venetian 
coloring were' evidenced in the inscription on the 
door of his studio, " II Disegno di Michel Angelo, 
e il Colorito di Tiziano." His finest picture was 
that of a Venetian slave, about to suffer martyr- 
dom from the Turks, when St. Mark, the patron 
saint of the republic, suddenly appears, in answer 
to her prayers, destroys the instruments of death, 
and disperses the executioners. But superior to 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 77 

all was Titian, the last and greatest of the Vene- 
tian school, now enjoying the mellowed radiance 
of a serene old age in his palace opposite the 
island of Murano, at the windows of which he 
might often be seen at the sunset hour, listening 
to the songs of the gondoliers, or conversing with 
the many guests who sought his presence. We 
may be sure that Philip Sidney visited the illus- 
trious artist who had been honored by kings and 
lauded throughout Europe ; to pick up whose 
pencil, Charles V. pronounced a service worthy 
of an emperor, and whose pictures were declared 
by him to be above all price. 

The kindred art of music was the pastime of 
all the sons of genius. They often met for its 
enjoyment; and Tintoretto, as Giorgione a few 
years before, was often persuaded to lend to 
patrician concerts the peculiar melody of his 
voice. 

Palladio, the famous architect, was still living. 
Sansovino, the sculptor, had died two years be- 
fore ; but his fame survived in the colossal statues 
of Neptune and of Mars, and in the decorations 
of the Mint and Library. Here, too, were men 
of letters. Tasso, still young, had written his 
Rinaldo, and was about publishing his Jerusalem. 
Francis Sansovino and Manutius, the learned 
printers and classical writers; Paruta, the histo- 



78 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

rian ; Paoli Sarpi, subsequently the able defender 
of Venice in its quarrels with Pius V., were the 
other celebrities of the day : and we have good 
reason to believe that Sidney frequently enjoyed 
the advantages of their society. 

The temptations of this gay city to young men 
of rank and fortune were doubtless manifold, and 
few of his countrymen escaped their contamina- 
tion. Roger Ascham, the good preceptor of 
Lady Jane Grey, lamented the practice of send- 
ing the youth of England to reside in Italy; 
declaring that they returned " sneerers, flatterers, 
backbiters, tainted with the vices of Venice, 
atheists, and epicures." But the watchful coun- 
sels of Languet, his own aesthetic and literary 
studies, and especially his pure and elevated prin- 
ciples, preserved Sidney from the evils whose 
mildew, once fallen on the soul, time and tears 
only can efface. And here it may be interesting 
to present to the reader a brief extract on the 
objects of self-culture, from one of Sidney's 
works ; regarding it as an expression of his hab- 
its of thought and study, at all periods of his 
life. 

" This purifying of wit, this enriching of mem- 
ory, ennobling of judgment and enlarging of con- 
ceit, which commonly we call learning; under 
what name soever it come forth, or to what im- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 79 

mediate end soever it be directed, the final end 
is, to lead and draw us to as high perfection as 
our degenerate souls (made coarse by their clay- 
lodgings) can be capable of. This, according to 
the inclinations of man, bred many-formed im- 
pressions ; for some that thought this felicity 
principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no 
knowledge to be so high or heavenly as to be 
acquainted with the stars, gave themselves to 
astronomy; others persuading themselves to be 
demi-gods, if they knew the causes of things, 
became natural and supernatural philosophers ; 
some, an admirable delight drew to Music ; and 
some, the certainty of demonstrations, to the 
mathematics ; but all, one and other, having this 
scope, To Know, and by knowledge to lift up 
the mind from the dungeon of the body, to the 
enjoying of its divine essence. But when, by 
the balance of experience, it was found that the 
astronomer, looking to the stars, might fall into a 
ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might be 
blind to himself, and the mathematician might 
draw forth a straight line with a crooked heart ; — 
then, lo ! did Proof, the overruler of opinions, 
make manifest that all these are but serving 
sciences ; which, as they are all directed to the 
higher aim of the mistress-knowledge, Knowl- 
edge of a Man's Self, in the ethic and politic 



80 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

consideration — with the end of Well Doing, not 
of well knowing only — so the end of all earthly 
learning being virtuous action, those skills that 
most serve to bring forth that, have a most just 
title to be princes over the rest." * 

After a few months sojourn in Venice, Sidney 
withdrew to the quiet and learned city of Padua, 
that he might devote himself to severe study 
in the sciences of geometry and astronomy, to 
Cicero's Epistles, and the works of Plutarch, 
which were then very rare and with difficulty 
obtained. He remained there eight months, as- 
siduously storing his mind with the wisdom of 
the acute and critical Greek, and forming his 
style upon the classic elegance of the Roman ; 
while his recreation was found in the pages of 
Petrarch and Boccaccio, of Dante and Ariosto, 
whose hymns of genius still thrill the pulse of 
fair but faded Italy. 

Of Sidney's correspondence with Languet 
only seventeen letters have been handed down 
to us ; but they most pleasantly indicate the 
friendship of these eminent men, their mutual 
interest in the political transactions of the times, 
and Sidney's scholastic pursuits under the direc- 
tion and advice of his learned guide. Here is 
one dated January 15, 1574 : 

* Defence of Poesv. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 81 

" Behold at last my letter from Padua ! Not 
that you are to expect any greater eloquence than 
is usually to be found in my epistles, but that 
you may know I have arrived here as I proposed, 
and in safety ; and I think it right without any 
delay to write you a few words from hence, for 
your satisfaction and my own, as far as commu- 
nication by letter can be satisfactory. Here I 
am then, and I have already visited his Excel- 
lency the Count and the Baron Slavata, your 
worthy young friends, and while I enjoy their 
acquaintance with the greater pleasure to myself, 
I am perpetually reminded of your surpassing 
love of me, which you show in taking so much 
care not only for me, but for all my concerns and 
conveniences, and that without any deserving on 
my part. But you are not a man to be thanked 
for such a thing ; for you are even now meditat- 
ing greater kindness still, and in truth, as far as I 
am concerned, much as I am indebted to you, I 

am only too willing to owe you more 

Your last letter brought me no news, for it was 
filled with instances of your affection, ever pleas- 
ant indeed, but long since known and proved, a 
kind of letter which is, above all others, delightful 
and acceptable to me, for while I read I fancy 
that I have the very Hubert himself before my 
eyes and in my hands. I intend to follow your 



32 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

advice about composition thus: I shall first take 
one of Cicero's letters and turn it into French ; 
then from French into English, and so once more 
by a sort of perpetual motion it shall come round 
into Latin again. Perhaps too I shall improve 
myself in Italian by the same exercise. For I 
have some letters translated into the vulgar 
tongue by the very learned Paolo Manuzio,* and 
into French by some one else. The volumes of 
Cicero I will read diligently. There are some 
things also that I wish to learn of Greek, which 
hitherto I have skimmed on the surface. But the 
chief object of my life, next to the everlasting 
blessedness of heaven, will always be the enjoy- 
ment of true friendship, and there you shall have 
the chiefest place." . . . 

On the 4th of February he writes again : — 
" Your last letter was, on many accounts, most 
delightful to me, full as it was of your affectionate 
regard. I am glad you approve of my intention 
of giving up the study of astronomy, but about 
geometry I hardly know what to determine. I 
long so greatly to be acquainted with it, and the 
more so, because I have always felt sure that it is 
of the greatest service in the art of war ; never- 
theless I shall pay but sparing attention to it, and 
only peep through the bars, so to speak, into the 
* A celebrated printer of Venice. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 33 

rudiments of the science. Of Greek literature I 
wish to learn only so much as shall suffice for the 
perfect understanding of Aristotle. For though 
translations are made almost daily, still I suspect 
they do not declare the meaning of the author 
plainly or aptly enough ; and besides, I am utterly 
ashamed to be following the stream, as Cicero 
says, and not go to the fountain head. Of the 
works of Aristotle, I consider the politics to be 
the most worth reading ; and I mention this in 
reference to your advice that I should apply my- 
self to moral philosophy. Of the German lan- 
guage, my dear Hubert, I absolutely despair. It 
has a sort of harshness, (you know very well what 
I mean,) so that at my age, I have no hope that 
I shall ever master it, even so as to understand it ; 
nevertheless, to please you, I will sometimes prac- 
tise it, especially at dinner with my good Delius. 
I readily allow that I am often more serious than 
either my age or my pursuits demand ; yet this I 
have learned by experience, that I am never less 
a prey to melancholy than when I am earnestly 
applying the feeble powers of my mind to some 
high and difficult object. 

" I am both glad and sorry that you ask me so 
urgently for my portrait ; glad, because a request 
of this kind breathes the spirit of that sweet and 
long-tried affection with which you regard me ; 



84 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and sorry that you have any hesitation in asking 
me for so mere a trifle." . . "As soon as ever I 
return to Venice, I will have it done either by 
Paul Veronese or by Tintoretto, who hold by far 
the highest place in the art." . . . 

His letters in April and May of the same year 
are replete with anxiety in regard to the prospects 
of the Protestant cause : — 

"I would have you believe that I am deeply 
and sincerely distressed. For I have heard, and 
that from no obscure persons, but even from the 
Council of Ten, that Count Louis has been de- 
feated and mortally wounded ; his brother taken, 
and a great number of his people slain, among 
whom, most distinguished, are Christopher, son of 
the Palatine, and certain Counts of the Rhine, as 
they are called. And they say that such a panic 
has arisen from this in Belgium, that unless some 
Christian prince comes to the rescue, affairs are 
tending to a surrender. I hope, indeed, and hope 
because I wish, that this is a false rumor, spread 
about to please the Spaniards, who desire nothing 
so much as that men should believe they are 
prospering. But howsoever it may be, my dearest 
Languet, this at least is certain, that our princes 
are enjoying too deep a slumber." ..." I late- 
ly saw a work, written with some skill, in which 
the author strongly urges the princes whom he 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 85 

calls Catholic, to carry out the decrees of the 
Council of Trent ; and he finds occasion for this 
especially in the disgraceful indolence of the Ger- 
man princes ; for while some of them are engaged 
in carousals, others in absurd hunting parties, 
others again in turning the course of rivers with 
lavish expenditure ; and all, except the Palatine, 
have made up their minds to neglect their people 
and ruin themselves, he is confident they may 
easily be crushed." ..." I have written to-day 
to my uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and have told 
him all the results which the Spaniards promise 
themselves from this victory. Perhaps some good 
may come of my letter, and if not, at any rate, 
for my own part, I would rather be charged with 
lack of wisdom than of patriotism." .... 

" I hear the Turks are making great 

preparations this year, so that I hope the Span- 
iards will have to think more of defending their 
own homes than of attacking other men. And 
hence many persons begin to doubt whether John 
of Austria will return to Spain. Cosmo, Duke 
of Florence, died the other day ; his people lament 
him greatly, with the same feelings as those of 
the woman of Syracuse, who prayed long life to 
King Dionysius. His successor is even now 
busily treating with the Turks, that his Etrurian 
subjects may have free access to trade in Greece." 



86 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

. . . . . " I do hope that before many years 
are past, the virtues of these Spaniards will be 
understood by the whole world. They were born 
slaves, and have done nothing ever since (as if to 
make bad worse) but change their masters ; for 
they have always been servants of Carthaginians, 
Romans, Vandals, Goths, Saracens, or Moors; 
of late, indeed, they have been somewhat raised 
by the character of one man, Charles, and he was 
a Belgian, and since his death all the world sees 
with what speed they are hastening back to their 
original condition." .... 

The University of Padua was one of the most 
renowned in this age and country of scholars,* and 
Philip Sidney must often have met its erudite 
professors in the salons of the renowned Pinelli. 
This refined and wealthy gentleman made his 
house the resort of distinguished men from all 
parts of the world, and generously opened to them 
his library, containing every valuable book in print, 
and his museum of curiosities and of scientific 
instruments. 

Returning to Venice in February, 1574, Sidney 

* In Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, vol. 7, 
pp. 89-91, will be found a full and interesting account of the 
condition of the University of Padua during the 16th cen- 
tury. In 1564,' two hundred Germans were there studying 
law ; together with many artists, and foreigners from all parts. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 87 

wrote to Languet of his purpose to visit Rome. 
That faithful friend, alarmed it would seem, lest 
his religious principles should be subverted in the 
head-quarters of Romish proselytism, sent him 
repeated and earnest letters of dissuasion, assur- 
ing him that a visit there would hazard both his 
faith and his reputation. " If you should fall 
into the hands of those robbers at Rome," he 
writes, " you must either renounce the religion you 
profess, or expose your life to extreme danger. It 
would be entirely impossible for you altogether 
to escape them ; for although you might not have 
reason to be afraid of the treachery of those who 
pretend to be your friends, yet the dignity of your 
aspect would cause many to be inquisitive con- 
cerning you. What mighty advantage would 
accrue to you from inspecting for a few days the 
ruins of Rome, merely to boast that you had seen 
them? God has granted to you more than to 
any one I know, an energy of genius, not for the 
purpose of abusing it, by examining vain objects 
to your great danger, but of employing it for the 
advantage of your country and of all good men. 
You are only the steward as it were of your no- 
ble talents, and by the abuse of them you offend 
against that Being who has conferred such a 
blessing on you." " Mi dulcissime filii," he adds 
in another letter, "it is difficult for a man clothed 



88 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in white apparel to remain in an apartment filled 
with smoke and dust, without soiling his garment ; 
nor can the complexion which has been long ex- 
posed to the sun, retain its native hue. Equally 
difficult it will be for you to preserve your mind 
pure and spotless if you converse with the Ital- 
ians ; the inhabitants of Venice and Padua alone 
excepted, who have not yet entirely degenerated 
from the simplicity of those nations from which 
they deduce their origin." 

Sidney yielded to the advice of his friend, but 
expressed regret at a later period of his life that 
he had not visited the imperial city, and seen 
with his own eyes the fanes of pagan prayer 
mouldering among the Christian ideals of Raphael 
and Angelo ; that he had not stood within the 
shadows of the Coliseum, or meditated among 
the eloquent sepulchres of the Appian Way. 

Paul Veronese was the artist whom Sidney 
employed about this time to paint his portrait. 
Languet attributes its sad and thoughtful expres- 
sion to the severe studies which had occupied his 
mind, and somewhat impaired his health. 

Just before his final departure from Venice, he 
had the pleasure of witnessing a superb fete given 
to Henry III. of France, on his way from Poland 
to Paris. It will be remembered that when Duke 
of Anjou, he was the hero of Jarnac and Mon- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 89 

contour, successfully opposing, at the age of 
eighteen, the most marvellous prowess to the 
veteran skill of the elder Conde' and Coligni. 
We next hear of some hollow-hearted matrimo- 
nial negotiations with Elizabeth of England, and 
then of his active part in the tragedy of St. 
Bartholomew. The following year, the death of 
the last brave Jagellon left Poland without a 
king, and Henry Valois was invited to the empty 
throne. The splendid pageant of his progress 
through Germany, and his entrance with an 
escort of forty thousand richly dressed attendants, 
was followed by a brief and discontented reign. 
Disappointed in his kingdom and unpopular with 
his subjects, on the death of his brother Charles 
IX., he joyfully threw down the crown already 
hated, and hastened to assume that of his heredi- 
tary realm. Having accepted an invitation to visit 
Venice on his way, the most elaborate prepara- 
tions were there made for his reception. A 
gorgeous galley was built for his especial use, 
and thirty patrician youth appointed to attend 
him. The Doge went to meet him in the royal 
Bucentaur and the dignified body of senators 
escorted him to the palace of the Foscari. The 
city resounded with music by day, and blazed 
with illuminations by night. The venerable 
Titian received the princely cortege at his palace, 



90 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and presented the king with several of his paint- 
ings. Another day he was conducted to the ar- 
senal, where a mechanical feat was exhibited in 
the entire construction of a vessel in the space of 
two hours. A grand banquet was then given on 
board, at which the knives and forks, plates and 
napkins were all, with curious inutility, composed 
of sugar. At a subsequent entertainment in the 
ducal palace, three hundred groups of lions, 
nymphs, ships, and griffins, of the same material 
were gallantly presented to the fair Portias of the 
occasion.* 

Nearly three years had passed away since 
Philip Sidney's departure from his native land, 
and he was now impatient to return. They had 
been years of unwearied research and diligent 
acquisition, rearing a worthy superstructure upon 
the basis of his early education. He had learned 
to converse fluently in the French, Spanish, and 
Italian languages ; he had enriched his mind with 
classic lore and familiarized it with the literature 
of the age. From the schools of philosophy he 
had won the power of subtle thought, from the 
study of the sciences, that of critical analysis ; 
and in the works of art he had seen embodied the 
ideals of his own poetic fancy. He had learned 

* Darn's Histoire de la Rdpublique de Venise, 2d ed., Paris, 
1821. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 91 

lessons of statesmanship and of military life ; and 
prepared himself equally for the perplexing du- 
ties of the one, and the arduous action of the 
other. To all this must be added that irresistible 
grace which baffles imitation and cannot be de- 
scribed ; but which, emanating from the serene 
religious faith that was with him not only a 
principle but a feeling, bestowed, as the dew upon 
the flower, its crowning excellence upon the un- 
folded beauty of his character. 

His homeward route through Germany was 
rapid, and unmarked by striking incidents. We 
next hear of his presentation at court under the 
auspices of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester. 




92 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER V. 

fT would seem almost an impertinence to 
transfer to new canvas the familiar picture 
of the England of Shakspeare and the 
Maiden Queen. But with the knightly figure of 
Sir Philip Sidney in the foreground, we may be 
permitted to give prominence to that, by dashing 
into the background a few slight outlines of some 
other conspicuous personages of the day. We 
will drape them in their own attire, and follow 
them with rapid step from antique mask and 
revelry to the grave deliberations of the council 
chamber, to fields of prowess, and seas of ad- 
venture. With the dawn of liberal thought 
lately breaking upon Europe still mingled the 
reflected light of the fading star of chivalry, and 
nowhere were gallant feats of arms and courtly 
observances so essentially blended with states- 
manship and valor as among the subjects of the 
lion-hearted, but beauty-loving, Tudor. Her 
men of silk were also men of iron. If, one hour, 
they knelt before her in velvet hose and doublet, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 93 

and wooed her virgin heart with fantastic adula- 
tion and suppliant roundelay of love, the next 
might see them in martial array, hastening with 
impatient step to her armies in Holland, or bear- 
ing down upon the pirate fleet of Spain, with the 
war-cry of " England and the Queen ! " 

In truth, this strange compound of Diana, 
Semiramis, and Cleopatra, whom men called 
Elizabeth — this Amazon in will, and almost 
Sybarite in pleasure, tried the candidates for her 
service by a lofty and peculiar standard — just that 
of a politic and sagacious, yet susceptible and 
exacting, woman. She demanded indomitable 
courage, but the sword, burning in its scabbard, 
must wait her signal to unsheathe. Abdiel, the 
faithful, could hardly have satisfied her with his 
fidelity, and Bayard would have been required to 
consecrate his chivalry to her solitary shrine. She 
valued, like a wise sovereign, patriotism and prin- 
ciple ; and she admired, as only a woman can 
admire, manly beauty and accomplishment. Sir 
Walter Raleigh found the sacrifice of his costly 
cloak a stepping-stone, in double sense, to her 
favor ; and Sir Christopher Hatton owed his pro- 
motion to the accidents of a handsome person 
and graceful dancing. The " Gypsey Earl," as 
swarthy Leicester was called, knew well how to 
enthral her with the glamour of his dark eyes ; 



94 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and even her sixty years of withered maidenhood 
were not proof against the youthful blandish- 
ments of Essex. But Sir Christopher would not 
have danced into the lord-chancellorship, if he 
had not shown, to her penetrating eye, the ability 
which the office required ; nor could Leicester, 
with all his beguiling arts, ever make her forget 
that she carried a crown as well as a heart. 
Power was, after all, her predominating passion, 
and though the restless heart would sometimes 
struggle in its lonely prison, yet the crown of the 
daughter of Henry the Eighth rested on a brow 
as proudly defiant as that of her imperious father. 
With ungenerous perversity, she would neither 
hazard the matrimonial experiment herself, nor 
willingly permit any of those in her immediate 
service to do so. It was happiness enough for 
her cavaliers to bask in the sunshine of her 
smiles, and be permitted occasionally to kiss her 
beautiful hand; and her poor maids of honor 
soon found that a profession of vestal frigidity 
was indispensable to a place in her regard. 
Doubtless the sly flirtations of Greenwich and 
Richmond received a greater zest from the vigil- 
ance of the royal duenna. But although the 
grave offence of matrimony was often visited by 
disgrace, and even imprisonment, especially if the 
offender were a suitor or a kinsman, it is men- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 95 

tioned as a remarkable fact, that Hatton, the 
superlative dancer, was the only one of her min- 
isters who lived and died a bachelor. 

The paradoxical perfections which Elizabeth 
sought were so singularly blended in most of 
her eminent men, that it might seem a question 
whether they were created expressly for her ser- 
vice, or she, to elicit from their singular antagon- 
isms, the strength and power of her administration. 
It is certain that both were peculiarly adapted 
to the perils of that political crisis. The eye of 
Protestantism was anxiously turned upon Eng- 
land, and England knew that only the wisest 
dexterity could baffle the combined intrigues of 
the Catholic powers. If they could have re- 
leased Mary Stuart from her prison, and led her 
in triumph to the English throne, then might 
the champions of religious freedom throughout 
Europe have perished in the dungeons of the In- 
quisition, or stifled in silence the cry of their 
despair. The temporizing policy of Elizabeth 
and her ministers was a difficult but well-wrought 
problem. It was necessary to intimidate without 
incensing, to negotiate without self-committal, to 
attack without suffering reprisal, to retreat without 
dishonor, to elude the spy and discern the traitor, 
to aid the weak and defy the strong. Mean- 
while the fleet must be enlarged, the militia kept 



96 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in training, (for England had then no standing 
army,) the treasury enriched, and the people 
encouraged. 

When Philip Sidney first entered upon the 
brief career of his manhood, there stood at the 
helm of state, faithful as Nestor and incorrup- 
tible as Aristides, Cecil, Lord Burleigh, once 
deservedly called by a great man of France, 
" Quasi Rex et Pater Patriae." England never 
rejoiced in a better or a wiser statesman than the 
Lord Treasurer. Neither personal interest, sick- 
ness, misfortune, friend nor foe, could divert him 
from the affairs of his office when they demanded 
his attention. Fearless and uncompromising, 
both liberal and frugal, his mind could grasp the 
most comprehensive objects, and descend to the 
most minute. So proudly upright was he that 
nothing could offend him more than the offer of 
a bribe. He was said not to have been idle more 
than half an hour during twenty-four years, and, 
with impartial justice, he listened as readily to the 
poor as to the rich. Of commanding presence 
and winning kindness of manner, this faithful 
servant was well appreciated by the Queen, 
although her impetuous temper often visited him 
with angry words. " I will stoop for your master, 
but not for the King of Spain," she once said to 
his servant, when on entering Burleigh's sick 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 97 

chamber, her towering head-dress made such con- 
descension necessary. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon, the father of him whose 
name is a synonyme of both wisdom and weak- 
ness, was the second great pillar of the privy 
council. He was the most acute thinker of them 
all, and the tangled questions of state were often 
unravelled by his patient deliberation. " Let us 
stay a little," he would say, " and we shall have 
done the sooner." 

Leicester played Endymion to England's Di- 
ana, ingeniously weaving at the same time 
various little underplots of love with Diana's 
nymphs. Arrogant, unscrupulous, and artful, he 
was the most unpopular of statesmen, and not 
often essentially serviceable ; but his insinuating 
manners, his lavish ostentation, not unmingled 
with generosity, and the partiality of the Queen, 
encircled his head with a perpetual halo. It is 
but justice to add, that he was a patron of letters, 
and liberal in gifts to his church, which was of 
the new sect of Puritans; and that he was always 
most kind and true to his relatives, especially to 
his nephew Philip, whom he really loved. 

Lord Buckhurst was a faithful and honorable 
counsellor, but chiefly distinguished for his dram- 
atic and poetic talents, and as the author of 
Gorboduc, the first tragedy written in the Eng- 



98 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

lish language, a work highly commended by Pope 
for its perspicuous and dignified style. 

Walsingham was in England, lending to state 
affairs, as usual, his astute diplomacy and sleep- 
less vigilance. Then there was the brave and 
honest Lord Hunsdon, first cousin of the queen ; 
somewhat rough in speech, and better pleased 
with the freedom of the camp than the tiresome 
punctilios of the court. The preeminently hand- 
some Howard was another royal relative, who, 
thirteen years later, conducted the attack upon 
the terrible Armada, and was in consequence 
created Earl of Nottingham. It was to the wife 
of this nobleman that Essex entrusted the cele- 
brated ring to which his destiny was linked ; and 
its fatal retention was owing to the personal 
enmity of the Earl toward the ill-starred favorite. 

Conspicuous in the tilt-yard, and eager as 
Quixote himself in all knightly exercises, was Sir 
Henry Lee — always the declared champion of 
her Majesty. He was the founder of the gallant 
band of Knights Tilters, who, numbering twenty- 
five of her favorite courtiers, met once a year to 
exhibit their chivalrous exploits. Another orna- 
ment of this romantic society was the Earl of 
Cumberland, who, at tournaments, proudly w T ore 
in his high-crowned hat a glove w T hich was be- 
stowed upon him by the coquettish vestal as he 



SIK PHILIP SIDNEY. 99 

knelt to kiss her hand, and which, with flattering 
devotion, he immediately caused to be set in dia- 
monds.* 

Sir John Perrot, the gigantic Apollo, and fear- 
less soldier, was mostly occupied in Ireland, vainly 
striving with Sir Henry Sidney to subdue its tur- 
bulent inhabitants. Sir Francis Drake was in the 
same unsatisfactory service, but busily revolving 
the renowned voyage upon which he entered two 
years later. Raleigh had lately returned from 
France, where, for six years past, he, with a com- 
pany of gentlemen volunteers, had lent his aid 
to the Huguenots. Though now pretending to 
study law in the Inner Temple, we must believe 
that his reveries were far less among its musty 
folios and parchments, than in the golden en- 
chantments and the orange groves of America. 
Shakspeare, eleven years old, was picking up a 
little Latin at the free school in Stratford ; and 
Francis Bacon, a youth of fifteen, was astonish- 
ing the professors of Cambridge by his precocious 
criticisms upon their time-honored philosophy. 
Then there was Sussex, brave soldier and honor- 
able counsellor, always ready, in any way, to 
serve his country. Norris, with his five martial 

* Petrarch even surpassed the English Earl, for he wrote 
four sonnets to express the pleasure he received from picking 
up Laura's glove. 



]00 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

brothers, Sir Francis Vere, Knowles, Cavendish, 
and a host of others, not forgetting the proud 
and petulant Lord Oxford, who hereafter recurs 
to our notice in a little passage-at-arms with Sir 
Philip Sidney. Heywood, the witty dramatist 
and popular favorite, had recently died. Camden 
was writing his Britannia ; Stow's Chronicles had 
just appeared, and Hollinshed's came out the 
next year. Bishops Jewell and Parker had passed 
away, not long before; and Hooker, the "judi- 
cious" expounder of ecclesiastical law, was young 
and unnoticed. 

History bestows high praise upon the " sweet- 
hearts and wives " of England in that era. 
Strype writes, of the reign of Edward VI., " It 
is now no strange matter to hear gentlewomen, 
instead of vain communication about the moon 
shining in the water, use grave and substantial 
talk in Latin or Greek of godly matters. It is 
now no news for young damsels in noble houses 
and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and 
other instruments of idle trifling, to have con- 
tinually in their hands either Psalms, Homilies, 
and other devout meditations, or else Paul's 
Epistles, or some book of holy Scripture ; and 
as familiarly to read or reason thereof in Greek, 
Latin, French, or Italian, as in English." Al- 
though, twenty-five years later, the court of Eliz- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 101 

abeth was marked by strict decorum, there was 
a decided relaxing, if not from the austere vir- 
tues, at least from the solemn occupations, of her 
brother's reign. We hear marvellous stories of 
the Queen's reading the Greek Testament daily, 
and entertaining her maidens with Seneca and 
Socrates, as they plied the needle in embroidery ; 
and we are told that the daughters of duchesses 
alternated the classics with the preparation of 
savory viands and perfumed waters, for medicine 
or the toilet. But the ladies of the court were 
doubtless fully occupied with the pageants and 
processions, the bear-baitings, and excursions in 
gilded barges on the Thames, the royal pro- 
gresses from one castle to another, the tourneys 
and festivals which served to keep the Queen 
before the people. Everybody is familiar with 
their fantastic attire; with the huge fardingales 
and starched * ruffs, the perfumed gloves, with air 
holes stamped in the palm to release the perspir- 
ation, the vast fans of ostrich feathers sunk in 
handles of gold or silver half a yard long, the 

* Stubbes, a sarcastic writer of the 17th century, says of 
this new innovation : " One arch or piller wherewith the 
devil's kyngdom of great ruffes is propped, is a certaine kind 
of liquid matter which they call startche ; wherein the devil 
hath learned them to wash and die their ruffes, which being 
drie, will stand stiff and inflexible about their neckes." 



102 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

little mirror hanging from the girdle, and the 
coquettish love-lock thrown over the shoulder, 
with a flower fastened to the end. We remem- 
ber the three thousand dresses and eighty wigs 
of " Queen Bess," and her judicious reproofs 
of the extravagance of her subjects ; and 
smile at the inventory of remarkable silks em- 
broidered with birds, beasts, bees, caterpillars, 
spiders, flies, snakes and grasshoppers, suns and 
fountains, trees and clouds, and one, allegorically 
covered with eyes.* 

London had only 60,000 inhabitants, and there 
was consequently a very neighborly feeling among 
its citizens. The picturesque old timber houses 
were built with gable roofs, oriel windows, gilt 
vanes, and immense carved chimney-pieces. 
Tapestry and wooden panels were giving way 
to plaster, on which a contemporary writer thus 
delightedly expatiates : " Beside the delectable 
whitenesse of the stuffe itself, it is laid on so 
even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment 
can be done more exactly." 

Wealth was displayed in quantities of silver- 
plate, in mirrors from Venice and clocks from 
Germany ; but carpets had not yet entirely super- 
seded the rushes that littered even palatial floors. 
The table was divided by a large salt-cellar, 
* Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 103 

above which were the seats of honor, the choice 
viands, and the Muscadel and Hippocras, spark- 
ling in Venice goblets ; and below, the humble 
guests and poor kinsmen were content with ale, 
and coarser fare. Knives were a recent luxury, 
and forks still unknown. Dinner was at eleven 
or twelve, and in country houses dessert was 
eaten in the garden bowers. Evening prayers 
came at five or six, supper followed, and the night 
closed with merry sports or the minstrelsy of 
blind harpers.* 

The streets of London were lighted by in- 
dividual agency, each family hanging out its 
lanthorn. The Thames was a clear stream, 
upon which 4,000 watermen plied their craft. 
Coaches were not introduced until 1580, and 
were then regarded as an effeminate innovation. 
" I wonder," says one of those old writers, " why 
our nobility cannot in fair weather walk the 
streets as they were wont ; as I have seen the 

* An extract from one of Massinger's plays gives us some 
idea of the prodigality of delicate viands that crowded the 
tables of the wealthy. 
" Men may talk of country Christmasses, 

Their thirty pound buttered eggs, their pies of carp's tongues, 
Their pheasants drenched with ambergris, the carcasses 
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to 
Make sauce for a single peacock, yet 
Their feasts were fasts, compared to the city's." 



104 TH E LIFE AND TIMES OF- 

Earls of Cumberland, Essex, Shrewsbury, &c, 
besides those inimitable presidents of courage 
and valor, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Philip Sidney." 
The ceremonies, sports, and characters described 
by Shakspeare, are all faithful transcripts of his 
own era. St. Paul's Cathedral was the fashion- 
able resort, each day, from ten to twelve, a. m., 
and from three to six, p. m. There sauntered the 
Mercutios and Gratianos to sport their jewelled 
rapiers, to learn the news, (for newspapers, those 
exhilarating little fountains of gossip, had not 
appeared,) * to make appointments, to offer chal- 
lenges for the duello, to barter, and to bribe. 
Falstaff says of Bardolph, " I bought him at St. 
Paul's." The middle aisle was the grand arena 
where gallants displayed their silk cloaks and 
scented doublets, their Italian lace collars and 
spangled plumes, their peach-colored hose, fringed 

* It is asserted that the first English newspaper was pub- 
lished in London in 1588, and called " The English Mer- 
curic." An extract from one of its early numbers preserved 
in the British Museum, is as follows : " Yesterday the Scotch 
Ambassador had a private interview with her Majesty and 
delivered a letter from his Master, containing the most cordial 
assurance of adhesion to her Majesty's interests, and to those 
of the Protestant religion ; and the young king said to her 
Majesty's minister that all the favor he expected from the 
Spaniards was the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses, that he 
should be devoured the last." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 105 

garters, and golden spurs ; — the selections of so 
many foreign marts as to justify the satire of an 
artist of that time, who, when painting for Lord 
Lincoln the costumes of different nations, repre- 
sented English caprice by the figure of a naked 
man, perplexedly regarding a pair of scissors and 
numerous colored fabrics heaped around him. 

When quarrels occurred at St. Paul's, or when 
debtors were pursued, the tomb of Warwick was 
a sacred asylum. In the churchyard was the 
principal book sale of London, for book-shops 
had at that time no existence.* 

Rosemary was handed round at funerals. 
" Here's rosemary, that's for remembrance," says 
Ophelia. " I pray you, love, remember." Wine 
was offered in churches after weddings, and 
theatrical companies performed both then and 
at christenings. Strolling players, in motley 
colors, continually paraded the streets of Lon- 
don, and delighted the courtiers. Thornbury 
tells us that " Ben Jonson played Hieronymo 
with such a troupe, and in a leather doublet, 
drove the wagon of stage properties." The 
theatres were on the rudest principle of con- 
struction; the floors were strewed with rushes, 
the scenery never movable, and ludicrously bad. 
If a temple or a palace was required, the au 
* Drake's " Shakspeare and his Times." 



10 G THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

dience were quietly told to suppose it. A Thebes 
or a Troy by the same imaginative power, lay 
behind a door, on which the name was printed 
in large letters. " Exit Venus, or if you can, let 
a chair come down from the top and draw her 
up." * Ladies were never present at these per- 
formances, and the parts of women were acted 
by boys.f But, as Thornbury says of bear-bait- 
ing, " the amusements that could please such 
minds as Burleigh's and Bacon's, are not to be 
sneered at in the nineteenth century." 

We are tempted to extract from this entertain- 
ing writer some curious specimens of the cus- 
tomary language of court and city gallants. 

* Knight's Pictorial. Collier's Annals of the Sta^e. 

f Sir Philip Sidney in his Defence of Poesy, thus ridicules 
the violation of the dramatic unities of time and place, — 

" You have Asia of the one side and Africa of the other, 
and so many other kingdoms that the player when he comes 
in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale 
will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk 
to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a 
garden. By and by we hear of shipwreck in the same place, 
then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon 
the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and 
smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it 
for a cave ; while in the mean time, two armies fly in, repre- 
sented with four swords and bucklers, and then, what hard 
heart will refuse to receive it for a pitched field?" 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. jqj 

A lady's solitude is invaded by one of these 
daintily-dressed creatures, who thus addresses 
her, — " Madam, your beauties being so attrac- 
tive, I wonder that you are left thus alone." 

" Better be alone, Sir, than ill accompanied." 

" Naught can be ill, lady, that can come near 
your goodness, for, sweet Madam, on what part 
of you soever a man casts his eye, he meets with 
perfection. You are the lively image of Venus 
throughout ; the graces smile in your cheeks, 
your beauty nourishes as well as delights. You 
have a tongue steeped in honey, and a breath 
like a panther ; a cloud is not soft as your skin ; 
your cheeks are Cupid's baths wherein he uses 
to steep himself in milk and nectar; he does 
light his torches at your eyes, and instructs you 
how to shoot and wound with his beams. Yet 
I love in you nothing more than your innocence ; 
you retain so native a simplicity, so unblamed a 
behavior. Methinks with such a love I should 
find no head or foot of my pleasure. You are 
the very spirit of a lady." 

Even this strained affectation gives but a 
scanty idea of the elaborate ceremonial of the 
age's politeness. 

At the passage of a door you must imagine 
tedious bowing and shaking of legs, and waving 
of hats, and, 



108 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"'Tis yours, Sir." 

" With your example, Sir." 

« Not I, Sir ! " 

" It is your right." 

" By no possible means." 

" You have the way." 

" As I am noble ! " 

" As I am virtuous ! " 

"Pardon me, Sir!" 

"I will die first!" 

" You are a tyrant in courtesy ! " 
all this to be ended by some one as wise as 
Master Slender stepping in briskly with, 

" I'd rather be unmannerly than troublesome. 
By your leave, Sir." * 

It was etiquette during this reign, for lovers to 
assume by certain negligences of dress that the 
tender passion had absorbed their thoughts and 
driven them to despondency. Rosalind says to 
Orlando in As You Like It, " There's none of 
my Uncle's marks upon you ; he taught me how 
to know a man in love. Your hose should be 
ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve 
unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing 
about you demonstrating a careless desolation." 
Yet these men blended with their fantastic 

* Thornbury's Shakspeare's England. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 109 

knight-errantry the stanch patriotism, the un- 
flinching courage, the religious fervor that would 
lead them over untried seas to unknown lands, 
sustain them in the tortures of the Inquisition, 
and nerve them for the field of battle. 

We must not omit to mention another element 
of the times which tinged with its mystical shadow 
some ot the wisest minds in Europe. The alche- 
mist still promised to distil from his crucible the 
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, Paracel- 
sus was revered in Germany, and Dr. Dee, the 
astronomer and geometrician, cast nativities under 
the patronage of Leicester and the Queen. A 
hundred years before, it was asserted in Germany 
that the product of burned Jews would be pure 
gold, twenty-four bodies being equivalent to ten 
pounds of the precious metal ; and even in 1600, 
Bacon and Shakspeare spoke with respect of 
astrologic art and planetary influences. 

And now, in the midst of this picturesque gen- 
eration, we see again the accomplished and loyal 
gentleman, for whose sake we have called up its 
retreating shadows. Philip Sidney was one of 
those persons who seem unconsciously to wield 
a strange magnetism over every one around them 
— whose silence even speaks, and whose atmos- 
phere is redolent of a subtle charm that may be 
felt but not analyzed, remembered but not com- 



HO THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

prehended. In the language of Fuller we are 
told, " he became so essential to the English 
Court that it seemed maimed without his com- 
pany." Whether discoursing with serene old 
Burleigh and dark-browed Walsingham, or 
throwing the lance with Cumberland and Lee, 
or repeating, in his low, musical tones, (for his 
voice was one of surpassing sweetness,) stories 
of Venice and Vienna to the listening maids of 
honor, his was ever the happy presence that 
irradiated and cheered. 

" Was never eie did see that face, 
Was never eare did lieare that tonge, 
Was never minde did minde his grace, 
That ever thought the travell long ; 
But eies, and eares, and ev'ry thought, 
Were with his sweet perfections caught." 

Spenser's Astrophel. 

The nephew of Leicester was sure of a gra- 
cious reception from the Queen ; but her pene- 
tration soon discerned his higher claims to her 
regard, and, as a preliminary to future honors 
from her hand, she appointed him to the courtly 
office of her cupbearer. It was a part of her 
romantic eclecticism, a mixture perhaps of policy 
and preference, to employ the gravest statesmen 
and most finished cavaliers in trifling services 
about her sacred person ; and such duties were 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. m 

performed by them with the devotion of knights- 
templars on a crusade. 

A few months after Sidney's return to England, 
he took part in one of those dazzling pageants 
which have been reflected for us in the magic 
mirror of Sir Walter Scott. The Queen had 
bestowed upon Lord Leicester the princely gift 
of Ke nil worth, and sometimes honored him with 
a visit there ; but the favored subject, having 
lately expended <£ 60,000 in enlarging and adorn- 
ing it, again besought her presence for a few days. 
In various pages of pompous declamation, we 
are told how a gay cavalcade of belted knights 
and lovely ladies, numbering in all some two or 
three hundred, glittered along the broad avenues, 
and wound up the sloping hill, one warm July 
evening ; and as the warder's horn resounded 
from the battlements, the greeting shouts of re- 
tainers and bursts of joyous music welcomed to 
the brave old Saxon castle the illustrious daugh- 
ter of a long race of kings. It were tedious to 
attempt a repetition of the gorgeous phantasma- 
goria that crowded those festal days, and trans- 
formed an English home into a mythological 
museum. The Fauns and Satyrs of buried hea- 
thenism suddenly peopled its groves, and bent 
reverently to the Christian Venus ; mermaids 
emerged with dripping locks from the waters of 



H2 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

its lake, to salute her with laudatory rhymes; 
Pan and Bacchus poured libations at her feet. 
On a temporary bridge, seventy feet in length, 
thrown from the court to the main building, 
stood seven Grecian divinities, who offered, on 
her arrival, various grotesque presents — fruits, 
fishes, cages of birds, silver bowls of grapes and 
wine, musical instruments, suits of armor, &c. 
explanatir ^ which were given in Latin verse 
by a pot $ in light blue silk. The castle 

clocks were . topped at the moment of her arrival, 
as if Time itself were in royal waiting. Dancing 
and revels occupied each evening, while the dis- 
charge of cannon echoed through the grounds, 
and fireworks flashed amid the venerable trees. 
A water pageant exhibited the lady of the lake 
on an illuminated island, and a huge dolphin 
glided over the waves, with Arion singing on his 
back, and an orchestra of twenty-four men mak- 
ing music within his body.* The refined diver- 
sion of bear-baiting, which even gentle women 
then looked upon with pleasure, hunting the stag, 
tournaments, and masques, crowded nineteen 
days of laborious amusement. 

We will here give a specimen of the last- 
named performance, in a brief synopsis of the 
Lady of 31ay, which was written by Philip Sid- 
* Laneham's Kenil worth. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 113 

ney, at the request of his uncle, when the Queen 
visited his Castle of Wanstead. Though ab- 
surdly insipid to modern taste, we must remem- 
ber that Shakspeare was yet unheard of, and the 
English theatre, in its crude beginning. 

Her Majesty, while walking through a grove, is 
suddenly accosted by one of the maskers dressed 
as a farmer's wife, who falls upon her knees and 
informs her that her daughter is addressed by two 
suitors, of such equally divided merits that she 
finds it impossible to choose between them ; and 
lest the rapidly increasing jealousy of the lovers 
should meet a fatal termination, she entreats the 
Queen to act as umpire. Leaving an adulatory 
poem in her Majesty's hands, she disappears, 
and there emerge from the wood a dozen shep- 
herds and foresters, accompanied by the prize 
of contention, the Lady of May. They are all 
smitten with admiration at the royal presence, 
and one of them, who is a schoolmaster, deliv- 
ers an exceedingly inflated speech,* plentifully 

* Many of the writers of this reign were imbued with a 
love of antithesis and declamation, of mythological allusions 
and far-fetched metaphors. One of the most noted of this 
school was Lilly, whose " Euphues " became the standard of 
imitation and of courtly parlance, " she who spoke not Eu- 
phuism being as little regarded as if she could not speak 
French." Sir Philip ridicules the affectation, in the character 
8 



114 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

sprinkled with Latin, in which he repeats the 
story of the damsel's mother. The Lady of May 
very sensibly interrupts him with the exclamation, 
" Away, you tedious fool, you are not worthy to 
look to yonder princely sight, much less your 
foolish tongue to trouble her wise ears." She 
then descants upon her lovers and compares their 
merits, saying in conclusion, " Now the question 
I am to ask you, is, whether the many deserts 
and many faults of Therion, or the small deserts 
and no faults of Espilus, be preferred." The 
two swains here enter upon a spirited poetical 
combat, expressive of their devotion to their 
ladye love, and their detestation of each other 
Espilus then kneels to the Queen and sings, 

" Judge you, to whom all beauty's force is lent," 
and Therion adds, 

" Judge you of Love, to whom all love is bent/' 

Hereupon the shepherds fall into a hot dispute 
in regard to the rival candidates, in which Rom- 
bus, the pompous schoolmaster, again engages. 
The rustic farce closes with the Queen's decis- 
ion in favor of Espilus, followed by a full chorus 
from the band, and a song of joy from the grate- 
ful swain. 

of Rombus, this schoolmaster, as did Shakspeare, subsequently, 
in the Holofernes of Love's Labor Lost. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 11,5 

But while, with dignified grace, Philip Sidney- 
bore a part in these fantastic ceremonials, his 
thoughtful mind turned to far different themes. 
Across the waters of the North Sea swept the 
heroic shouts of the armies of the Netherlands, 
and from Germany and France floated, in thrill- 
ing tones, the ^cry of the oppressed. The ear 
of Sidney listened, and his heart panted for 
action. Taught from childhood to revere the 
Protestant faith, his reverence was sublimed to 
love, and baptized with undying fire, on the sacri- 
ficial altar of St. Bartholomew. His association 
for three years with the Protestants of the conti- 
nent, his intimacy with Hubert Languet, and his 
own lofty sense of justice, continually deepened 
his sympathy and zeal. He knew that the con- 
flict was not for religion only. It was for politi- 
cal, social, and mental emancipation from a 
tyranny which wound its serpent folds around 
both soul and substance, stifling the senses and 
stupefying the brain. He remembered that this 
was the third great insurrection of free thought 
against papal domination. The bones of the 
Albigensian martyrs, bleaching in the valleys of 
the south of France, told the hopeless story of 
the first ; the fires that consumed Huss and his 
disciples were the fierce holocaust of the second ; 
and he felt that the present struggle was the most 



116 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

desperate, the most important, and perhaps the last. 
A glorious battle-ground invited the young and 
brave of Europe ; the competitors were kings and 
kingly men ; the prizes were liberty, fame, and the 
benedictions of those whom their prowess should 
make free. It was hard for an enthusiastic, high- 
souled man to tinkle the guitar for ladies' pleas- 
ure, while the laurels of such a field awaited the 
brow of the victor — to throw the lance in jesting 
tourney, while, across a narrow sea, the cham- 
pions of Truth contended in the lists of life and 
death. It was once well said, " the duties of 
life are more than life itself;" and perhaps no 
part of Sidney's character gleams with a brighter 
moral than his patient self-control and manly 
acquiescence, through long years of waiting upon 
the caprice of his arbitrary Queen. His repeated 
solicitations for employment abroad were met, 
as will be hereafter shown, by repeated refusals. 
k ' She would not further his advancement," says 
Naunton,* " because she feared to lose the jewel 
of her times." 

In the year 1576, however, she sent him on an 
embassy to the court of Vienna, to condole with 
the new Emperor Rodolph II. on the death of 
his father Maximilian, and to congratulate him 
on his own accession. This, at least, was the 
* Fragmenta Regalia. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 117 

ostensible object of the embassy ; the real object 
was to effect a coalition between England and 
the Protestant states of Germany against the 
Catholic powers. We are told that Elizabeth, 
with her usual pride of externals, had much 
regard to the handsome face and figure of her 
ambassador, but she also saw, as did Walsingham 
and Burleigh, that among the young sons of 
England they could not find another who united 
the persuasive address, the integrity and talent re- 
quisite for a mission of delicate diplomacy in a 
foreign land. He departed with a splendid retinue, 
and travelled in great state through Germany. 
On all the houses which he occupied, there was 
affixed a tablet bearing the arms of his family 
and the following grandiloquent inscription : — 

Illustrissimi et generosissimi viri 

Philippi Sidnaei Angli, 

Pro-regis Hiberniae filii, comitis Warwici, 

Et Leicestriae nepotis, serenissimae 

Pveginae Angliae ad Cesarem legati.* 

* Of the most noble and illustrious 

Philip Sidney of England, 

Son of the Governor of Ireland, kinsman of Warwick, 

And nephew of Leicester, Ambassador 

To the Emperor of Germany from her Serene Highness 

The Queen of England. 



118 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The new emperor received him with great 
courtesy, listening graciously to the messages of 
royal sympathy on the demise of "that excellent 
sovereign, his Father," mingled with expressions 
of hope that his own reign would be equally wise 
and prudent. His reply, which was in Latin, 
briefly avowed his intention to imitate the pater- 
nal example, and his grateful sense of the atten- 
tion of the English Queen. 

The next day Sidney had an interview with 
the empress, the widow of Maximilian. Of that, 
and of his adroit accomplishment of one of the 
objects of his mission, he thus writes in an official 
letter to Walsingham : — 

" I delivered her Majesty's letter to the Empress, 
with the singular signification of her Majesty's 
great good will unto her, and her Majesty's re- 
quest of her to advise her son to a wyse and 
peaceable governmente. Of the Emperor deceased 
I used but few wordes, because in troth I saw it 
bredd some troble unto her, to hear him mentioned 
in that kinde. She answered me with many 
courteouse speeches, and greate acknowledging 
of her own beholdingnesse to her Majestic And 
for her son, she said, she hoped he wold do well, 
but that for her own parte, she had given herselfe 
from the world, and woolde not greatly sturr 
from thenceforward in it. Then did I deliver the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 119 

Queen of Fraunce's letter, she standing by the 
Empresse, using such speeches as I thought were 
fitt for her double sorrow, had her Majesty's good 
will unto her confirmed by her wise and noble 
governynge of herself in the tyme of her being in 
Fraunce. Her answer was full of humbleness, 
but she spake so low that I coulde not under- 
stande many of her wordes.* 

" From them I went to the yonge princes, and 
past of each syde certaine complimentes, which 
I will leave, because I feare me I have alreddy 
bene overlonge there. The rest of the daies that 
I lay there, I informed myself as well as I coolde 
of such particularities as I received in my in- 
structions ; as 1, of the Emperor's disposition, and 
his brethren ; 2, By whose advice he is directed ; 
3, When it is likely he should many ; 4, What 
princes in Jermany are most affected to him ; 
5, In what state he is left for revenews ; 6, What 
good agrement there is betwixt him and his 

* This good and beautiful daughter of Maximilian II. was 
married to Charles IX. in 1570, and Sidney was consequently 
known to her in Paris. She must have discovered in her 
sanguiuary husband that spark of the divine said to exist in 
the most diabolical characters, for her attachment to him was 
enduring and sincere. Having promised him on his death- 
bed never to marry again, she soon after built a convent and 
there spent the remainder of her life. 



120 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

brethren ; 7, And what partage they have. In 
these thinges I shall at my returne more largely 
be liable and with more leysure to declare it 
Now only this much I will troble you withe, that 
the Emperor is wholly by his inclination given 
to the warres, few of wordes, sullain of disposi- 
tion, very secrete and resolute, nothinge the man- 
nerse his father had in winninge men in his be- 
haviour, but yet constant in keeping them ; and 
such a one, as, though he promise not much 
outwardly, but as the Latins say, aliquid in 
recessu; his brother Earnest much lyke him in 
disposition, but that he is more franke and for- 
ward, which perchaunce the necessity of his 
fortune argues him to be ; both extremely Spanio- 
lated." 

Sidney rightly divined the character of Ro- 
dolph II., who proved himself an unworthy suc- 
cessor to his humane and accomplished father. 
A bigoted Catholic, and utterly neglectful of the 
duties of a sovereign, he divided his time between 
his laboratory and his stables — yet never mount- 
ing his horses, which were numerous and magni- 
ficent. Tycho Brahe having cast his horoscope 
and predicted his death by the hand of his own 
son, he foreswore marriage, and slept in a room 
barred like a prison of state. 

After leaving Vienna, Sidney visited at Heidel- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 121 

burg the Elector Palatine, a brother of Rodolph. 
He writes again : " I had from her Majesty to 
condole with the Elector, and to perswade him 
to unite with his brother." — " One thing I was 
tolde to add in my speeche, to desyre him in her 
Majesty's name, to have merciful consideration of 
the church of the religion so notably established 
by his father, as in all Jermany, there is not such 
a number of excellente learned men, and truly it 
woold rue any man to see the desolation of 
them. I laide before him as well as I coolde, the 
dangers of the mightiest princes of Christendom, 
by entering into lyke violent changes — the wronge 
he should doe his worthy father, utterly to abolish 
that he had instituted, and so, as it were, con- 
demne him, besydes the example he shoolde give 
his posterity to handle him the like." 

Returning through the Netherlands, Sidney 
made the personal acquaintance of the greatest 
man of that age of greatness, — the pillar of light 
to the cloud- wrapped hosts of Holland, — William 
of Orange. It were needless to speak at length 
of the grand virtues, and the patriotic achieve- 
ments, which have lately been made universally 
familiar in the spirit-stirring pages of the " Rise 
of the Dutch Republic." Sidney had followed 
them from afar with admiring veneration, and 
uow, as he looked upon the care-worn figure in its 



122 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

severely simple garb, and on the benignant face 
which anxiety had furrowed at forty-three, the 
lighter adornments of inferior men seemed to 
melt away before the calm, comprehensive strength 
of this matchless character. He had the happi- 
ness, not merely of his acquaintance, but of his 
cordial friendship; and the loftiest tribute to 
Philip Sidney was that paid by William the 
Silent, when he called him, with habitual love and 
deference, " My Master," and pronounced him 
" one of the ripest and greatest counsellors of that 
day in Europe." * They never met again, but 
corresponded for several years on current politi- 
cal affairs. It is much to be regretted that none 
of these letters can now be discovered. 

History may be searched in vain for a more 
discordant contrast to the hero of Orange, than 
Don John of Austria, the Spanish Governor of 
the Low Countries. From the cradle to the 
grave, the life of this gay, ambitious, fascinating 
adventurer was one of perpetual romance. He 
owed his talents to his father, the Emperor 
Charles V.; his beauty and his boldness to his 
mother, a laundress of Ratisbon. Reared by a 
peasant in Spain, he never dreamed that imperial 
blood coursed through his veins, until, at the age 
of fourteen, while witnessing a royal hunt, he was 
* Fulke Greville's Life of Sidney. 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 123 

-astonished by a brotherly embrace from Philip 
II., and the assurance of his own august birth. 
A careful education developed his physical and 
mental capacities, and, at the age of twenty-three, 
he was one of the handsomest, haughtiest, and 
most accomplished men in Europe. His military 
career began in Granada, where for two years he 
carried on a crusade less glorious than vindictive. 
In 1571, the guns of Lepanto echoed his fame 
throughout the world, and the brilliant courage 
which won the greatest naval victory of modern 
times, became the terror of the Turks and the 
admiration of Christendom. In the elation of 
success, he made a descent upon Barbary, cap- 
tured Tunis, and demanded from the Pope the 
crown and title of king. Philip II., alarmed at 
the ambition of his kinsman, defeated the appli- 
cation, and hoped to engage his dangerous ener- 
gies among the insurgents of the Netherlands. 
But the young Crusader was now busy with 
another of those selfish and subtle fantasies that 
for ever occupied his brain. He resolved, by 
prowess or by plot, to open the prison doors of 
Mary Queen of Scots, to marry the beautiful 
captive, dethrone Elizabeth, and rule over the 
united realms. Many were the high-born hearts 
that yielded to the strangely captivating knight ; 
and cavaliers, seeking to imitate the careless grace 



124 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

with which the massive brown ringlets were 
thrown back from his temples, called the fashion 
by his name. Next to the games of love and 
war, chess was his favorite, played with living 
men, who were dressed in the uniforms of differ- 
ent nations. 

The haughty Spaniard had no love for Eng- 
lishmen, and when their young Envoy, untitled, 
and unheralded by daring deeds, was presented 
to him at Brussels, it was not to be supposed that 
his greeting would be very cordial. But even 
Don John's supercilious coldness vanished before 
that mingled dignity and sincerity of manner, 
which were felt by all of Sidney's contempora- 
ries, and which not even the jealous and malig- 
nant could refuse to admire.* 

" Ne spight itself, that all good things doth spill, 
Found aught in him that she could say was ill." 

The life of this last and most brilliant of the 
crusaders was a succession of splendid failures. 
His military exploits against the Moors and 
Turks were rewarded by neither wealth nor 
power. He was denied the sovereignty of 
Tunis ; he failed in his romantic scheme of mar- 
rying Mary of Scotland, and of ascending with 
her the double throne ; he was utterly foiled in 
* Fulke Greville. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 125 

the Netherlands by the want of troops and 
money, and by the superior tactics of William 
of Orange. In 1578, disappointed, heart-broken, 
and consumed by fever and fatigue, he wrote 
with touching pathos to Andrea Doria of Genoa, 
" They have cut off our hands, and we have now 
nothing for it but to stretch forth our heads 
also to the axe." — " I consider you most fortu- 
nate that you are passing the remainder of your 
days for God and yourself." — " I hope that you 
will remember me in your prayers, for you can 
put your trust where, in former days, I never 
could place my own." 

A few days later, the hero of Lepanto fought 
the last battle of earth, after a brief illness, in 
which, like Napoleon, his delirious fancy again 
crowned him the head of glittering squadrons, 
and thrilled his ear with the triumphant shouts 
of victory. His death was attributed to poison, 
and grave suspicions rest upon Philip II., who 
certainly was none too scrupulous, or too good, 
to render the charge improbable.* 

* Some Protestant rhymester, with more zeal than inspira- 
tion, published a long monody upon his death, called " The 
Pope's Lamentation." We extract a few verses: 
" O Heaven ! O Earth ! O Elaments ! 
and all therein containde ; 
Lament with me, poure forth your plaints, 
just cause hath so constrained : 



126 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Philip Sidney was complimented by several 
splendid presents during his absence — among 

Sith cursed Death, in cruel wise, 

hath reft me my delight ; 
Don Joan of Austria, he that sought 

By all the means he might, 
To save my Church, and me from harme, 

To strengthen my estate ; 
And with his power to punish those 

that did my doings hate. 
Come, come, my careful Cardnalles now, 

my Prelates and the rest, 
That wonted were to wish me well, 

I pray you all be prest,* 
To waile with woe the want of him, 

that during tearme of life 
Neglected naught that might be wrought, 

to make our glory rife ; 
Alas ! how am I gript with grief, 

what cares do compasse me, 
For losse of him whom I ordainde 

My champion cheefe to be ; 
And therefore Death ! I curse thee now, 

and eke thy cruel dart, 
Which did to that renowned Prince 

thy poysoned power impart, 
Those Huguenots thou mightest have hitte, 

to pacifyre thine yre ; 
And let this worthy wight alone 

to further my desyre," &c. 

* Pieady. 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 127 

others, was a massive gold chain from the Em- 
peror Rodolph, and another, fastened with a 
jewel, from the Prince of Orange. Of more 
value were the golden opinions which he won by 
his rare endowments, and the wisdom and dex- 
terity with which he accomplished the objects of 
his mission. Even Burleigh, who was unfriendly 
to Leicester, and not disposed to like any of his 
relations, bestowed on him the highest praise. 
This is all pleasantly told in a letter from Wal- 
singham to Sir Henry Sidney. " Now touching 
your Lordship's particular, I am to impart unto 
you the return of the young gentleman, your 
sonne, whose message verie sufhcientlie per- 
formed, and the relatinge thereof, is no less 
gratefully e received, and well liked of her Majes- 
tie, than the honourable opinion he hath left 
behinde him with all the princes with whome he 
had to negotiate, hathe left a most sweet savor 
and grateful remembraunce of his name in those 
parts. The gentleman hath given no small ar- 
guments of great hope, the fruits whereof I doubt 
not your Lordship shall reape, as the benefitt of 
the good parts that are in him, and whereof he 
hath given some taste in this voyage, is to re- 
dounde to more than your Lordship and himself. 
There hath not ben any gentleman, I am sure, 
these many yeres, that hathe gon through so 



128 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

honourable a charge with as great commenda- 
cions as he; In consideration wherof, I could not 
but communicate this part of my joy with your 
Lordship, being no less refreshinge unto me in 
these my troublesome business, than the soil is 
to the chased stagge. And so wishing the in- 
crease of his good parts to your Lordship's 
comfort, and the service of her Majestie and 
his countrie, I humbly take my leave. From 
the court at Greenwich this Xth of June, 1577. 
" Your Lordship's assured friend, 

" Francis Walsingham." 




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 129 




CHAPTER VI. 

^P^HEN through the lens of literature we 
y\ look down the long dim aisles where 

-^ glide the shadows of the mighty dead, 
it often happens that the eye is arrested by some 
form illustrious in the past. As we gaze and 
ponder, it becomes more luminous and distinct, 
until it stands before our quickened spirit as a 
living presence. The exile from earth seems to 
meet us on the bridge that spans with airy arch 
the gulf between two worlds. The long silent 
voice thrills our ear, and from beneath the lifted 
lid gleams the divine essence. But if we would 
daguerreotype for other eyes the image that en- 
chants our own, it seems to shrink from the 
material mirror, and with calm majesty to rebuke 
the portraiture. Thus we fail to describe what 
we clearly see ; our clumsy camera gives no just 
reflection ; still our love and reverence plead for 
the effort, although we know that it must be 
imperfect and unsatisfactory. It is deeply to be 
regretted that the biographers of Philip Sidney 



130 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

have bequeathed to us so few of those words and 
deeds which serve as outlines for a portrait. 
They tell us how, in general terms, he was the 
pride and marvel of the great and wise; how 
young gallants aped his fashions and quoted his 
sayings, and how the hearts of lovely maidens 
fluttered with pleasure at his approach. It is 
supposed by some that Shakspeare thought of 
Sidney, when he wrote of Hamlet, 

" The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword, 
The expectancy and rose of the fair state ; 
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 
The observed of all observers." 

But, though lavish of general praise, these nig- 
gard annalists have given us none of those 
pleasant trifles that glow with vitality — the 
table-talk, the confiding household undisguises, 
the straws of anecdote, that show which way 
the mood moves. For this deficiency we weave 
through our story a thread of perpetual lament. 
Nevertheless, through these vague generalities 
we often see a lambent gleam of character ; such, 
for example, as is manifest in the brief account 
of Sir Philip's defence, soon after his return from 
Germany, of his father's administration in Ireland. 
Sir Henry had become unpopular there by levy- 
ing (with undue rigor as it was said) a tax for the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 131 

maintenance of his own household, and of her 
Majesty's troops; and the representations made 
to the Queen had much excited her displeasure. 
With all the fervor inspired by filial affection, and 
an indignant sense of wrong, Sidney collected 
the articles of accusation, and, in a bold refuta- 
tion, triumphantly vindicated the honor of his 
father, and effectually restored to him the royal 
regard. 

From this generous zeal arose an incident 
which has been mentioned, as the sole blot upon 
an otherwise faultless history. Having learned 
that through some hidden spy the secrets of Sir 
Henry had been betrayed, he said to his father, 
11 I must needs impute it to some about you, that 
there is little written from you or to you, that is 
not perfectly known to your professed enemies." 
Suspicion fell upon Edward Mollineux, the friend 
and secretary of Sir Henry, and the result was 
the following letter : 

" Mr. Mollineux, 

" Few woordes are best. My letters to my 
father have come to the eyes of some; neither 
can I condemne any but you for it. If it be so, 
you have plaide the very knave with me, and so 
I will make you know, if I have good proofe of 
it ; but that for so much as is past ; for that is 
to come, I assure yow before God, that if ever I 



132 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

knowe you to do so much as to reede any lettre 

I wryte to my father, without his commandment, 

or my consente, I will thruste my dagger into 

yow ; and truste to it, for I speake it in earnest. 

In the mean tyme, farewell. 

Byrne, 

Philippe Sidney." 

It is probable that the charge here conveyed 
was groundless ; but if it were true, as Sidney 
believed it to be, it seems to us that, judged by 
the standard of his age, and by his own high 
sense of honor, this curt and pointed epistle finds 
sufficient palliation. In the category of dishonor, 
next to an actual betrayal of trust, should be 
ranked such an act of meanness as extorted this 
indignant rebuke ; nor can the menace surprise 
us from one who felt, to use his own lofty words, 
that " death is a less evil than betraying a trust- 
ing friend." Besides, when the rapier and the 
sword were girded in the belt of every cavalier, 
not only for ornament, but for use, and thrusts 
and cuts were things of light exchange ; and 
when the Queen herself did not scruple to box 
the ears of her lords in waiting, or to strike and 
pinch her maids of honour, it seemed rather cred- 
itable to Sidney that,' instead of personal alterca- 
tion, he expressed at the outset, with the frank- 
ness of a true gentleman, his displeasure at the 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 133 

offence, and his determination to avenge its 
repetition. 

Sir Henry Sidney was very proud and happy 
in his favorite son. He writes of him about this 
time to Robert, his second son, then travelling on 
the continent : " Follow the advice of your loving 
brother, who in loving you, is comparable with 
me, or exceedeth me. Imitate his virtues, exer- 
cises, studies and actions ; he is a rare ornament 
of his age, the very formular that all well-disposed 
young gentlemen of our court do form also their 
manners and life by. In truth, I speak it without 
flattery of him or myself, he hath the most vir- 
tues that ever I found in any man. I saw him 
not these six months, little to my comfort. Once 
again I say, imitate him." 

A letter in the Sidney papers from Philip to 
his brother, so pleasantly indicates his fraternal 
affection, that one or two extracts cannot fail to 
be read with interest. Speaking in one of them 
of his readiness to furnish pecuniary aid, he says, 
" There is nothing I spend so pleaseth me as that 
which is for you. If ever I have ability, you will 
find it ; if not, yet shall not any brother living be 
better beloved than you of me." After many 
kind admonitions in regard to his studies, among 
which he advises him to keep a common-place 
book for making extracts, he adds, " Now, sweet 



134 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

brother, take a delight to keep and increase your 
music. You will not believe what a want I find 
of it in my melancholy times." — " I would, by the 
way, your worship would learn a better hand. 
You write worse than I ; and I write evil enough. 
Once again have a care of your diet, and conse- 
quently of your complexion." — " You purpose, 
being a gentleman born, to furnish yourselfe with 
the knowledge of such things as may be service- 
able for your country and calling ; which cer- 
tainly stands not in the change of air (for the 
warmest sun makes not a wise man) ; no, nor in 
learned languages, (although they be of service- 
able use,) for words are but words, in what lan- 
guage soever they be ; and much lesse in that all 
of us come home full of disguisements, not only 
of apparel, but of our countenances, (as though 
the credit of a traveller stood all upon his out- 
side,) but in the right informing your mind with 
those things that are most notable in those places 
which you come into. For hard sure it is to 
know England, without you know it by compar- 
ing it with some other country ; no more than a 
man can know the swiftness of his horse without 
seeing him well matched," Then follows some 
advice about the use of weapons, " to exercise 
your health and strength, and make you a strong 
man at the Tourney and Barriers. First in any 






SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 135 

case practice with the single sword and after- 
wards with the dagger. Let no day pass without 
an hour or two such exercise ; the rest study and 
confer diligently, and so shall you come home 
to my comfort and credit. Lord! how I have 
babbled ; once again, farewell, dearest brother." 

The subject of these letters, though nearly for- 
gotten in the overshadowing fame of his elder 
brother, became a distinguished man. He re- 
ceived high commendations while travelling on 
the continent, and secured the friendship of 
Languet. He was honored with knighthood for 
his military prowess in the Netherlands, and, 
some time after, successively created Baron of 
Penshurst, Viscount Y Isle, and Earl of Leicester. 
The celebrated Algernon Sidney was his son. 

We are told in " Old England's Worthies " 
that there is preserved at Penshurst " an exceed- 
ingly interesting picture by Gerardi, which repre- 
sents the brothers standing side by side, their 
arms linked together, the one looking the Pro- 
tector, and the other the Protected." 

There was another brother, named Thomas, of 
whom little is known, except that he was a val- 
iant military officer. 

Mary, Countess of Pembroke, was the only 
sister of Philip Sidney, and they seem to have 
been deeply and mutually attached. She is 



136 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

lauded by many writers, in both prose and verse, 
as a lady of surpassing loveliness and intellectual 
attainments. Ben Jonson's familiar epitaph we 
have quoted, and Spenser speaks of her as 

" Urania, sister unto Astrophel, 
In whose brave mind, as in a golden coffer, 
More rich than pearls of Ind, or gold of Ophir, 
And in her sex more wonderful and rare." 

We come now to the most important act of 
Sidney's life, one whose consequences, immediate 
and remote, upon England, and perhaps upon 
Europe, were of incalculable extent, — as slight 
obstructions sometimes change forever the current 
of a mighty stream. This was the writing of a 
letter to the Queen, dissuading her from a pro- 
jected alliance with the heir presumptive of the 
crown of France. To explain the story clearly, 
we must go back seven years, to the time when 
Henry Valois, finding himself unconquerably 
averse to a union with the august spinster, nine- 
teen years older than himself, suddenly broke 
away from the matrimonial web, much to the 
vexation of his mother, and the mortification of . 
the jilted fiancee. But Catherine de Medici 
never gave up a game while a single card re- 
mained to play. Anjou had failed, but Alengon, 
her youngest son, remained. Nostradamus, the 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 137 

famous astrologer, had predicted that her four 
sons should all be crowned heads, and to verify 
the prophecy, one of them must espouse the 
Queen of England. Accordingly, La Motte 
Fenelon, the French ambassador, resident at 
London, was instructed to present the overtures 
of the younger prince. Never were the arts of 
flattery better practised than by this most insin- 
uating and adroit of Frenchmen ; and never, 
despite the good sense and dignity which she 
manifested in many respects, was sovereign more 
susceptible to these arts than Elizabeth. 

The satisfied credulity with which, for ten 
years, she received the adulation of her boyish 
suitor and his envoys, and the diplomatic wari- 
ness and cunning manifested on both sides, con- 
stitute one of the most amusing passages in 
history. There is no probability that she seri- 
ously thought of marrying a man twenty-three 
years younger than herself, puny in stature, re- 
pulsively ugly, deeply marked with smallpox, 
and so weak and wicked, that his own sister, 
Marguerite of Valois, said of him, that " if fraud 
or cruelty were to be banished from the earth, 
there was in him a stock sufficient to replenish 
the void." His personal defects were sufficient 
objection with a princess so fastidious as to 



138 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

have once refused the place of gentleman-usher 
to an individual who simply lacked one tooth, 
and who required that, in her walks and rides, all 
deformed and diseased persons should be care- 
fully kept out of her sight. But this little ro- 
mance was only another specimen of the political 
craft and feminine vanity which were blended in 
most of her actions. It not only furnished occa- 
sion to her courtiers to delight her ear with 
ingenious variations upon her own loveliness, but 
served to divert France from forming an offensive 
alliance against her, with Philip II. or the Pope. 
It also agreeably occupied her discontented 
Catholic peers, as, from the sullen solitude of 
their castles, they wistfully looked for the release 
of Mary of Scotland, or for some other event 
which should give them a sovereign of their own 
faith. The proposed match was extremely un- 
popular with the Protestants ; although Sussex, 
Hunsdon, Admiral Lincoln, and a few others, were 
its advocates, from the fear of Catholic combination 
against Elizabeth, and in favor of Mary Stuart. 
Burleigh, with his usual sagacious prevision, 
encouraged it, and even borrowed from astrology 
a persuasive prophecy in its favor — thinking, all 
the while, that the queen would be amused with 
this harmless dalliance until it was too late for 
her to marry at all, and fully determined that 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 139 

such should be the result. A very shrewd old 
man was the Lord Treasurer ; and a stormy time 
he had in managing his wilful mistress, and in 
steering the ship of state safely through the 
breakers and shoals which obstructed its course. 
The tactics of Elizabeth were first displayed in a 
demur to the disparity of age, and in the reported 
absence of beauty in her proposed spouse. Fene- 
Ion was armed for all objections. He reminded 
her that Pepin le Bref only reached to the 
girdle of his wife, Bertha of Almain, and yet 
their son Charlemagne was nearly seven feet in 
height. As to the traces of the smallpox, they 
would soon be hidden by a beard, or perhaps 
removed by medical art; and his youth was a 
decided advantage, since he could be the more 
easily governed by herself and her councillors. 
Then followed marvellous representations of the 
ardor of this doughty knight, and frequent letters 
from his own hands, replete with reverent adora- 
tion. But, at the end of six years of cajoling 
and evasion, the consummation seemed as dis- 
tant as ever ; and so " Monsieur," as the English 
called the Prince, (now the Duke of Anjou,) sent 
over a special pleader in the person of M. Simier. 
This was another of the brilliant butterflies whom 
the queen liked to have fluttering about her, and 
so witty and agreeable did he prove, that she 



140 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

invited him constantly to her private parties, and 
even received him into her confidence. On all 
these occasions, he urged with great dexterity the 
suit of his master, pathetically picturing his mel- 
ancholy suspense, and his chivalrous devotion to 
the ladye of his love. At last, one balmy day in 
June, while this modern Diana sat placidly among 
her lords and ladies in Greenwich Palace, there 
knocked loudly at the gates, an unknown knight, 
in close disguise, who craved admission to her 
presence. The Duke himself, having, with the 
romance of a crusader, crossed the channel with 
only two attendants, now came to learn defini- 
tively the result of his long and tedious wooing. 
The Queen was enchanted. Not one of the 
royal Jasons in quest of the golden prize had ever 
before courted her in person ; neither Rodolph of 
Austria, nor the Archduke Charles, Eric of Swe- 
den, Philip of Spain, nor Henry of Anjou. This 
bold suitor had outdone them all, and, despite the 
smallpox and the ugly nose, seemed likely to 
outdo them still. During the few days of his 
stay, he made such an impression upon the sus- 
ceptible maiden of forty-six summers, that, a few 
weeks later, she assembled her council to deliber- 
ate upon the proposed alliance. After much 
grave consultation, mingled with some blunt 
asides about " old maids," and unsuitable ages, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 141 

which were very happily not overheard by the 
venerable coquette, they requested to be " informed 
of her pleasure on the subject, and they would 
endeavor to make themselves conformable to it." 
This was by no means a satisfactory reply. She 
was decidedly bewitched with Monsieur, and 
anxious to receive the sanction of her subjects to 
a union with him. So with a flood of passionate 
tears she told her ministers that she had expected 
they would show themselves highly pleased with 
such remote fore sh ado wings of an heir to the 
crown as her marriage might reasonably promise; 
and with that she gave them a petulant dismissal. 
She was in very bitter mood for several days. 
" The sun does not shine," said Hatton ; " it is 
no time to present a petition." The discontent 
of her subjects could not be concealed ; her coun- 
sellors gravely demurred, and altogether there 
was a great struggle between her queenly wis- 
dom and her womanly will. At this uncomfort- 
able crisis, she asked the advice of Philip Sidney, 
and no doubt expected from the " Jewel of the 
Times," as she styled him, such courtly counsel 
as would both soothe and encourage her. His 
reply was marked by a fearless independence and 
excellent sense which have commanded for it 
universal approval. Hume says it was written 
" with unusual elegance of expression, as well as 



142 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

force of reasoning," and Miss Aiken pronounces 
it " the most eloquent and most courageous piece 
of that nature which the age can boast." 

With loyal courtesy, he addresses her as his 
" most feared and beloved, most sweet and gra- 
cious sovereign ; " refers to conversations he had 
formerly held with her on the subject of her mar- 
riage, in which she had protested that " no 
private passion or self-afTection," could lead her 
to it; and says, "Now resteth to consider what 
be the motives of this sudden change, as I have 
heard you in most sweet words deliver." After 
alluding to the two religious factions in her king- 
dom, and reminding her that the security of her 
own position depended entirely on the affection 
of her Protestant subjects, to whom she had 
given the " free exercise of eternal truth," he 
says, " How will their hearts be galled, if not 
aliened, when they shall see you take a husband, 
a Frenchman and a Papist, in whom (howsoever 
fine wits may find further dealings or painted 
excuses) the very common people well know this : 
that he is the son of a Jezebel of our age ; that 
his brother made oblation of his own sister's 
marriage, the easier to massacre our brothers in 
belief; that he himself, contrary to his promise 
and all gratefulness, having his liberty and princi- 
pal estate by the Huguenots' means, did sack La 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 143 

Charite, and utterly spoil them with fire and 
sword ! This, I say, even at first sight, gives 
occasion to all truly religious, to abhor such a 
master, and diminish much of the hopeful love 
they have long held to you." 

" The other faction," he adds, " is the Papists : 
men whose spirits are full of anguish, on various 
accounts ; men of great numbers, of great riches, 
and of united minds. This rank of people 
want nothing so much as a head, who, in effect, 
needs not but to receive their instructions, since 
they may do much mischief only with his coun- 
tenance." In strong terms, he pictures the en- 
mity of the Catholics to her as a usurper, and as 
excommunicated by Papal edict ; and their joy 
in the prospect of her union with the Duke of 
Anjou, because, although he was a stranger to 
them, the ties of creed and party were then 
stronger than all other ties. 

Of the Duke himself, he speaks in no flattering 
terms. " Whether he be not apt to work on the 
disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged 
by his will and power ; his will to be as full of 
light ambition as is possible, beside the French 
disposition and his own education, his inconstant 
temper against his brother ; his thrusting himself 
into the Low country matters ; his sometimes 
seeking the King of Spain's daughter, sometimes 



144 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

your Majesty, are evident testimonies of his being 
carried away with every wind of hope ; taught to 
love greatness any way gotten ; and having for 
the motioners and ministers of the mind only 
such young men as have shewed they think evil 
contentment a ground of any rebellion ; who 
have seen no commonwealth but in faction, and 
divers of which have defiled their hands in odious 
murders. With such fancies and favorites, what 
is to be hoped for ? " 

With pleading earnestness, he portrays the 
evils that might overwhelm the people under the 
rule of this turbulent prince ; the danger that their 
interests would be sacrificed to his weakness or 
ambition ; and the folly of presuming upon the 
amity of the treacherous house of Valois. He 
alludes to the alliance of her sister Mary with 
Philip of Spain, the discontent it created in Eng- 
land, and its unhappy effects upon herself; and 
after speaking of her own " odious marriage with 
a stranger," he adds : " If your subjects do at 
this time look for any after-chance, it is but 
as the pilot doth to the ship boat, if his ship 
should perish ; driven by extremity to the one, 
but as long as he can with his life, tendering the 
other." 

In a strain of graceful homage, he concludes 
this spirited epistle : " As for this man, as long 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 145 

as he is but Monsieur in might, and Papist in 
profession, he neither can nor will greatly shield 
you ; and if he grow to be king, his defence will 
be like Ajax's shield, which rather weighed down 
than defended those that bore it. Against con- 
tempt, if there be any, which I will never believe, 
let your excellent virtues of piety, justice, and 
liberality, daily, if it be possible, more and more 
shine. Let such particular actions be found out, 
which be easy as I think to be done, by which 
you may gratify all the hearts of the people ; let 
those in whom you find trust, and to whom you 
have committed trust, in your mighty affairs, be 
held up in the eyes of your subjects ; lastly, 
doing as you do, you shall be, as you be, the 
example of princes, the ornament of this age, the 
comfort of the afflicted, the delight of your peo- 
ple, the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, 
and the perfect mirror of your posterity." * 

Philip Sidney had not lived three years at 
Court without learning that it was no light 
matter to brave the anger of his "most sweet 
and gracious sovereign." The vindictiveness 
which was her inheritance, generally mastered 
her womanly compassion. Brave and beautiful 
heads in her reign were laid low upon the scaf- 

* Cabala. 
10 



146 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

fold ; high-born hearts pined beneath the frown- 
ing battlements of the Tower; and even in the 
blaze of crackling fagots, rebels sometimes ex- 
piated their rebellion. Torture often blanched 
the lips of the suspected ; disgrace and imprison- 
ment were frequent penalties of a hasty retort, or 
freely expressed opinion. Severe retribution fol- 
lowed the writer, and the printer, of a little book 
published simultaneously with Sidney's letter. 
It was entitled, " The discovery of a gaping 
gulf, wherein England is like to be swallowed 
by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid 
not the banns by letting her see the sin and 
punishment thereof," and these unfortunate men 
were condemned to lose their right hands. Page, 
the publisher, exclaimed, as he looked upon his 
amputated member, " There lies the hand of a 
true Englishman ! " and poor Stubbs, the author, 
after the axe had fallen upon him, waved his 
left hand and bravely cried, " God save the 
Queen ! " Probably not one of Elizabeth's min- 
isters would have ventured upon the frank and 
manly remonstrance which was offered by this 
fearless young champion. That none of them 
did so, at least, is certain. Collectively strong, 
they were, in this matter, individually cautious 
and irresolute. But Philip Sidney never flinched 
from duty, and, not even by silence, was traitor 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 147 

to the truth. " The truly valiant," he once said, 
"dare every thing but to do others an injury." 
The Queen, irritated with her counsellors and 
her people, felt, as all others did, the serene as- 
cendency of his pure, exalted mind. The letter 
was graciously received, the matrimonial negoti- 
ations brought to a present pause, and when they 
were resumed, it was with so much vacillation 
as to justify the inference that she was playing a 
political game. The Duke made several efforts 
to regain his lost ground ; but although, in the 
fascination of his presence, the royal maiden 
faltered as any rustic maiden of her realm might 
have done beneath the gaze of Corydon or 
Damon, and although, as the chroniclers tell us, 
she wore a gold ornament in which his " phis- 
nomye" was painted, and gave him in public a 
ring from her own finger, besides many unmis- 
takable evidences of affection, yet we may well 
believe that this pungent appeal haunted her 
memory, and prompted her final resolve. 

Sidney maintained a constant correspondence 
with his venerable friend Languet, keeping him 
apprized of all his movements, and gratefully re- 
ceiving his paternal counsels. After this letter to 
the Queen became publicly known, Languet ex- 
pressed much apprehension lest the French should 
seek personal revenge upon the writer, and he 



148 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

warns him to be upon his guard, if the Duke of 
Anjou should visit England with a large retinue. 
But Sir Fulke Greville says : " He kept access to 
her Majesty as before, and a liberal conversation 
among the French, reverenced amongst the wor- 
thiest of them for himself, and born in too strong 
a fortification of nature for the less worthy 
to treat either with question, familiarity, or 
scorn." 

In truth, the only enemy that Sidney seems to 
have had was the Earl of Oxford, a weak, wicked 
man, and the veriest coxcomb in the kingdom. 
He had no distinction but that of having first 
introduced into England perfumed and embroi- 
dered gloves from Spain. He presented the 
Queen with a pair, decorated with tufts of rose- 
colored silk, which she always wore when she sat 
for her portraits. After this time, he further dis- 
tinguished himself by ruining his fortune, defac- 
ing his beautiful castles, and pre-determinately 
breaking the heart of his wife,* in revenge upon 
her father, Lord Burleigh, because he refused to 
interfere in behalf of the Duke of Norfolk, of 

* While Sidney was a student at Oxford, a treaty of mar- 
riage was proposed between this lady and himself. Lord Bur- 
leigh and Sir Henry held some correspondence on the 
subject, and it does not seem to be known why the negotia- 
tions were not concluded. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 149 

whom the Earl was a special friend. He was, at 
this time, the head of the French faction ; and, 
doubtless, provoked at the part which Sidney had 
taken in the proposed alliance. So, one day, when 
the latter was playing his favorite game of tennis, 
the Earl entered the tennis court, and insolently 
ordered him to leave it. This Sidney of course 
refused to do ; whereupon the Earl, with added 
wrath, repeated the command, calling him, among 
other abusive epithets, a puppy. A crowd of 
noblemen and courtiers were by this time gath- 
ered ; the French legation with the rest. Per- 
haps Philip Sidney should have scorned " to stain 
the temper of his knightly sword " with foeman so 
unworthy, but he answered the insult by a haughty 
challenge. Oxford sullenly refused either an 
acceptance or an apology. Sidney repeated his 
defiance, and the quarrel waxed fierce. The 
lords of the privy council vainly attempted to 
mediate, and at last the Queen interposed. 
Sending for Sidney, she told him that " there 
was a great difference in degree between earls and 
private gentlemen, and that princes were born 
to support the nobility, and to insist on their 
being treated with proper respect." His was not 
the spirit to quail at the undeserved rebuke of 
even sceptred power. With becoming respect, 
but fearless independence, he adroitly refuted the 



150 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

argument. " That place," he said, " was never 
intended for privilege to wrong ; witness herself, 
who, soever sovereign she were by throne, birth, 
education and nature, yet was she content to cast 
her own affections into the same mould her sub- 
jects did, and govern all her rights by the laws. 
And although the Earl was a great lord by birth, 
alliance, and grace, yet he was no lord over him ; 
and therefore the difference between free men 
could not challenge any other homage than pre- 
cedency." He then reminds her that her father 
" gave the gentry free and safe appeal against the 
opinions of the grandees, and found it wisdom by, 
the stronger combination of numbers, to keep 
down the greater power." * 

This was bold trenching upon royal ground. 
We do not hear of another youth, gentleman or 
peer, who could with impunity have led Majesty 
to the well and shown her Truth at the bottom. 
But it was all taken in good part, and perhaps 
Elizabeth was even pleased with the intrepid 
spirit of her knight. 

This affair was, doubtless, annoying to his sen- 
sitive mind ; and, besides, he was tired of the 
monotony of court life. He wrote a year previ- 
ously to Languet, that he earnestly desired pri- 

* Fulke Greville's Life of Sir Philip Sidney. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 151 

vacy and leisure. Soon after this, he asked leave 
from the Queen to pass some time at Wilton, the 
residence of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. 
During this visit, he wrote his first work ; a famous 
romance, called the Arcadia. A richly carved 
oak chair, which he usually occupied in the library 
at Wilton, is even now preserved as a precious 
relic ; and visitors are still admitted to another 
room there, the panels of which represent the 
shepherds and the knights, the rustic dances and 
the martial deeds, of Sidney's story. 



152 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 




CHAPTER VII. 

HE Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney is a mix- 
p ture of the old Gothic romance with the 
Italian pastoral. As it was one of the 
standard works of that century, and is still vene- 
rated as a literary curiosity, let us take down 
from its shelf a rare old copy printed in 1638, 
and cull therefrom a few specimen passages, 
weaving them together with a brief outline of 
the story. 

The work opens with a dialogue between two 
shepherds, idly stretched upon a sandy beach of 
Laconia, on the charms of a certain damsel, of 
whom they declare that " as the greatest thing in 
the world is her beauty, so that is the least 
thing that may be praised in her." They are 
diverted from the theme by the sudden appear- 
ance of a man, floating on the fragment of a 
shattered vessel. As soon as their care has re- 
stored his senses, he begs them to seek for 
his friend Pyrocles, who is also a victim of the 
wreck. Engaging the services of some fishermen, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 153 

they proceed in the search, accompanied by the 
stranger, Musidorus, who promises to reward 
them from a casket of jewels,which he has managed 
to save. They soon espy, seated upon the broken 
mast, a youth of wondrous beauty, scantily ap- 
parelled in a garment wrought with blue silk and 
gold, and waving a sword with defiant air above 
his head. The simple fishermen imagine him 
some god of the sea, but Musidorus, with joyful 
recognition of his friend, assures them that " he is 
but a man, although of divine excellencies." But 
now heaves in sight a pirate ship, well known 
to them as a cruiser for slaves for the galleys, and 
the terrified mariners ply their boat hastily home- 
ward, leaving poor Pyrocles, — embroidered toga, 
sword, and all, — in hopeless solitude. Musidorus 
is in despair, knowing what is now the inevitable 
fate of his comrade. The shepherds, compassion- 
ating his grief, advise him to seek the protection 
of a fine old Arcadian gentleman, named Kalan- 
der ; "a man who for his hospitality is so much 
haunted that no news stirs but comes to his 
ears ; for his upright dealing so beloved of his 
neighbors, that he hath many ever ready to do 
him their uttermost service ; to him we will bring 
you, and there you may recover your health, with- 
out which you will not be able to make any dili- 
gent search for your friend." With comforting 



154 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

care, they conduct him to Arcadia, arriving there 
"in the time that the morning did strew roses 
and violets in the heavenly floor, against the 
coming of the sun." Here follows one of the 
poetical descriptions with which the book abounds: 
" There were hills which garnished their proud 
heights with stately trees ; humble valleys whose 
base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing 
of silver rivers ; meadows enamelled with all sorts 
of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets which being 
lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so, 
too, by the cheerful disposition of many well- 
tuned birds ; each pasture stored with sheep, 
feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs 
with bleating oratory craved the dam's comfort ; 
here a shepherd's boy, piping as though he should 
never be old; there a young shepherdess, knitting, 
and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice 
comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept 
time to her voice music." — "A happy people," he 
says, " were the Arcadians ; wanting little, because 
they desired not much." The house of Kalander 
he pleasantly describes as " built of fair and 
shewy stone, not affecting so much any extrava- 
gant kind of fineness, as an honorable represent- 
ing of a firm stateliness. The lights, doors, and 
stairs, rather directed to the use of the guest than 
to the eye of the artificer." — "All more lasting 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 255 

than beautiful, but that the consideration of the 
exceeding lastingness made the eye believe it 
was exceeding beautiful. The servants, not so 
many in number as cleanly in apparel and service- 
able in behavior, testifying even in their counte- 
nances that their master took as well care to be 
served as of them that did serve."* The worthy 
host receives Musidorus with great hospitality, 
nurses hirn through a long illness, and sends out 
a galley in search of Pyrocles ; and finding in his 
guest u a mind of most excellent composition, a 
piercing wit quite devoid of ostentation, high- 
erected thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy, an 
eloquence as sweet in the uttering as slow to 
come to the uttering, a behavior so noble as gave 
a majesty to adversity, and all in a man w T hose 
age could not be above one and twenty years, the 
good old man was even enamored with a fatherly 
love toward him." 

Among various objects of taste in this Arca- 
dian home, such as gardens, statues, and pictures, 
Musidorus is one day attracted by the portraits 
of a " comely old man, a lady of middle age but 
of excellent beauty," and a maiden of surpassing 
loveliness. Kalander explains that they represent 



* It is thought that this description was intended as a 
picture of Penshurst Castle, Sir Philip's early home. 



156 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the royal family of Arcadia ; and proceeds to say 
that Basilius the King, having received an un- 
pleasant prophecy from the Delphian oracle, had 
determined to avert its fulfilment by breaking up 
his court, and burying himself, and his wife and 
daughters, in the solitude of a forest hard by. He 
describes Basilius as " not exceeding in the vir- 
tues which get admiration, as depth of wisdom, 
height of courage, and largeness of magnificence, 
but notable in those which stir affection, as truth 
of word, meekness, courtesy, mercifulness, and 
liberality." Gynecia, his wife, many years 
younger than himself, is " a woman of great wit, 
and more princely virtues than her husband ; of 
so working a mind and so vehement spirits, as a 
man may say, it was happy she took a good 
course, for otherwise it would have been terrible." 
Of the daughters he says, " there is more sweet- 
ness in Philoclea, more majesty in Pamela ; 
methought love played in Philoclea's eye, and 
threatened in Pamela's ; Philoclea's beauty only 
persuaded, but so as hearts must yield, — Pamela's 
used violence, as no hearts could resist." Philo- 
clea is humble and diffident, Pamela full of wise 
and lofty thought. 

Some days after, Musidorus discovers that 
Kalander has heard some painful news which he 
conceals from his guest, because the laws of hos- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 157 

pitality, " long and holily observed by him, give 
such a sway to his proceedings that he will in no 
way suffer the stranger lodged under his roof to 
receive any infection of his anguish." Musido- 
rus hears from the steward of the household that 
Clitophon, Kalander's only son, having gone off 
on a chivalrous service for a friend, had become 
accidentally engaged in a battle between the 
Helots and their masters, and was a prisoner in 
the hands of the former. Musidorus resolves to 
attempt the rescue of Clitophon ; and Kalander, 
with joyful assent, assembling two hundred Ar- 
cadian gentlemen, they enter the Helot camp by 
stratagem. After a sharp conflict, in which the 
Arcadians lose ground, Musidorus proposes to 
decide the day by single combat with the Helot 
captain. " And so they began a fight which was 
so much inferior to the battle in noise and num- 
ber as it was surpassing it in bravery, and, as it 
were, delightful terribleness. Their courage was 
guided with skill, and their skill was armed with 
courage ; neither did their hardness darken their 
wit, nor their wit cool their hardness ; both val- 
iant, as men despising death ; both confident, as 
unwonted to be overcome, — their feet steady, 
their hands diligent, their eyes watchful, and 
their hearts resolute. " 

Musidorus at last receives a blow which knocks 



158 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

off his helmet, and, reeling backward, is astonished 
to see his foe kneeling at his feet, and offering 
him the hilt of his sword, in token of submission. 
It is his lost friend Pyrocles, who has just dis- 
covered with whom he is contending. Matters 
are soon amicably adjusted between the belli- 
gerent parties ; Clitophon is released, and the 
two friends return home with Kalander. 

After a few days of social enjoyment, Musi- 
dorus perceives that Pyrocles is silent and ab- 
stracted, seeking solitude in the woods and 
gardens " as if his only comfort was to be with- 
out a comforter." Attributing this sadness to 
long absence from their home in Thessaly, where 
they both held the rank of princes, he proposes 
that they return thither. Receiving no encour- 
agement, he proceeds to reason with him upon 
the change in his conduct. 

" A mind well trained and long exercised in 
virtue, doth not easily change any course it once 
undertakes, but upon well-grounded and well- 
weighed causes, but whereas you were wont to 
give yourself vehemently to the knowledge of 
those things which might better your mind, to 
seek the familiarity of excellent men in soldiery 
and learning, and to put all these things in prac- 
tice, you now leave them all undone ; you let 
your mind fall asleep; beside your countenance 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 15Q 

troubled, which surely comes not of virtue ; for 
virtue, like the clear heaven, is without clouds ; 
and lastly, you subject yourself to solitariness, 
the sly enemy that doth most separate a man 
from well-doing." 

Pyrocles, after acknowledging the kindness of 
the expostulation, defends himself by saying, 
" These knowledges, as they are of good use, 
yet are they not all the mind may stretch itself 
unto ; who knows whether I feed not my mind 
with higher thoughts ? Truly, though I know 
not all the particularities, yet I see the bounds 
of all these knowledges ; but the workings of the 
mind I find much more infinite. And in such 
contemplation I enjoy my solitariness ; and my 
solitariness, perchance, is the nurse of these con- 
templations. Eagles we see fly alone, and they 
are but sheep which always herd together. — And 
doth not the pleasantness of this place carry in 
it sufficient reward for any time lost in it ? Do 
you not see how all things conspire to make this 
country a heavenly dwelling ? Do you not see 
the grasses, how in color they excel the emer- 
alds, each one striving to pass his fellow, and yet 
they are all kept of equal height ? Do not these 
stately trees seem to maintain their flourishing 
old age, with the happiness of their seat, being 
clothed with a continual spring, because no beauty 



160 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

here should ever fade ? Doth not the air breathe 
health, which the birds, delightful both to eye and 
ear, do daily solemnize with the sweet consent 
of their voices ? And these fresh and delightful 
brooks, how slowly they glide away, as loth to 
leave the company of so many united things in 
perfection ; and with how sweet a murmur they 
lament the forced departure. Certainly it must 
be that some goddess inhabiteth this region who 
is the soul of this soil." 

Musidorus is not quite satisfied with this adroit 
subterfuge ; but the conversation is interrupted 
by Kalander, who comes to invite their presence 
at a stag hunt. After the hunt, Pyrocles is miss- 
ing, and a letter to Musidorus informs him that 
his friend is the hopeless victim of the tender 
passion. He is much disturbed by the flight of 
Pyrocles, and again starts in search of him, to 
the grief of Kalander, who, however, " knowing 
it to be more cumber than courtesy to strive, 
abstains from urging him." 

After two months of unrewarded knight-errant- 
ry, in the course of which he meets with various 
remarkable adventures, he returns despondingly 
to Arcadia. One day, while reposing under the 
shade of a forest-tree, he is surprised by the sight 
of a beautiful Amazon, clad in a doublet of blue 
satin, decked with gold plates in imitation of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 161 

mail, crimson velvet buskins, on her head a cor- 
onet of gold and feathers made to resemble a 
helmet, and at her side a sword. Entering an 
arbor " of trees with branches lovingly inter- 
laced," and singing a doleful love-ditty, her fea- 
tures reveal to the astonished Musidorus his long- 
sought Pyrocles. Grieved at this unmanly dis- 
guise, he addresses him in a strain of affectionate 
reproof ; reminds him of his noble birth, and that 
he is now forfeiting the fame with which his pre- 
vious life had been rewarded ; " as if you should 
drown your ship in the desired haven, or as if an 
ill player should mar the last act of his tragedy." 
" Remember, that if we will be men, the reasona- 
ble part of our soul is to have absolute command- 
ment." — " Nay, we are to resolve that if reason 
direct it, we must do it ; and if we must do it, 
we will do it." With impatient vehemence, he 
denounces, in a tirade worthy of the great Cynic 
himself, the passion that has been " the author 
of all these troubles " — " it is nothing but a cer- 
tain base weakness, which some fools call a gen- 
tle heart ; his companions are unquiet longings, 
fond comforts, faint discomforts, hopes, jealousies, 
ungrounded rages, causeless yieldings ; so is the 
highest end it aspires unto, a little pleasure, with 
much pain before, and great repentance after. 
It truly subverts the course of nature, making 
11 



162 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

reason give place to sense, and man to woman." 
" True love," he adds, " hath that excellent nature 
in it, that it doth transform the very essence of 
the lover into the thing loved ; uniting, and as it 
were, incorporating it with a secret and inward 
working. The love of heaven makes one heav- 
enly ; the love of virtue, virtuous ; but this effem- 
inate love of a woman doth so womanize a man 
that if he yield to it, it will not only make an 
Amazon, but a launder, a distaff, a spinner, or 
whatsoever vile occupation his idle head can 
imagine, and his weak hands perform. There- 
fore if either you remember what you are, what 
you have been, or what you must be ; if you 
consider by what kind of creature you are moved, 
you shall find the cause so small, the effect so 
dangerous, and both so unworthy of you, that I 
doubt not I shall quickly have occasion rather 
to praise you for having conquered it, than to 
give you farther counsel how to do it." Pyrocles, 
though displeased with this expostulation, par- 
dons it " from the exceeding good-will he bears 
to Musidorus." He takes up the cudgels in be- 
half of the despised sex, and reminds him that if 
men have such excellence, it is reasonable to 
attribute it, in part at least, to their mothers, 
" since a kite never brought forth a good flying 
hawk." The invective against love, he says, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 163 

should be levelled against him, rather than 
against love itself; "above all, not against that 
divine creature who hath joined me and love 
together," and avows, that notwithstanding his 
womanly attire, he will prove himself a man in 
that enterprise. After much sharp shooting on 
both sides, Musidorus indignantly exclaims, " I 
now beseech you, even for the love betwixt us, 
(if this other love hath left any in you towards 
me,) for the remembrance of your father, and for 
your own sake, to purge yourself of this vile 
infection ; otherwise give me leave to leave off 
this name of friendship, as an idle title of a 
thing which cannot be where virtue is not estab- 
lished." In the accents of wounded affection 
Pyrocles replies, "Alas, how cruelly you deal with 
me ; if you seek the victory, take it ; and if ye 
list, the triumph ; have you all the reason of the 
world, and with me remain all the imperfections ; 
yet such as I can no more lay from me than the 
Crow can be persuaded by the Swan to cast off 
his black feathers. But truly you deal with me 
like a physician, that seeing his patient in a pes- 
tilent fever, should chide him, instead of minis- 
tering help, and bid him be sick no more ; or 
rather like such a friend, that visiting his friend 
condemned to perpetual prison and laden with 
grievous fetters, should will him to shake off his 



164 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

fetters or he would leave him. I am sick, and 
sick to the death ; I am prisoner, neither is there 
any redress but by her to whom I am a slave. 
Now, if you list, leave him that loves you in the 
highest degree. But remember ever to carry this 
with you, that you abandon your friend in his 
greatest extremity." " And herewith the deep 
wound of his love being rubbed afresh with 
this new unkindness, began as it were to bleed 
again, in such a sort as he was unable to bear 
it any longer, but gushing out abundance of 
tears, and crossing his arms over his woful heart, 
he sunk down to the ground ; which sudden 
trance went so to the heart of Musidorus, that, fall- 
ing down by him and kissing the weeping eyes 
of his friend, he besought him not to make ac- 
count of his speech ; which, if it had been over 
vehement, yet was it to be borne withal, because 
it came out of a love much more vehement ; but 
now, finding in him the force of it, he would no 
farther contrary it, but employ all his service to 
medicine it. But even this kindness made Pyro- 
cles the more to melt in the former unkindness, 
which his manlike tears well showed, with a silent 
look upon Musidorus, as who should say, and is 
it possible that Musidorus should threaten to 
leave me? And this struck Musidorus's mind 
and senses so dumb too, that, for grief, not being 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 165 

able to say any thing, they rested with their eyes 
placed one upon another in such sort as well 
might point out the true passion of unkindness 
to be never aright but betwixt them that dearly 
love." * 

A complete reconciliation ensues, and Musi- 
dorus begs to hear the story of Pyrocles's mis- 
fortunes, because " between friends all must be 
told, nothing being superfluous or tedious." "As- 
sure yourself," he says, " there is nothing so great 
which I will fear to do for you, and nothing so 

* D'Israeli has remarked, in allusion probably to this dia- 
logue, " There is something in the language and the conduct 
of Musidorus and Pyrocles, which may startle the reader, and 
may be condemned as very unnatural and most affected. 
Their friendship resembles the love which is felt for the beau- 
tiful sex, if we were to decide by their impassioned conduct, 
and the tenderness of their language. Coleridge observed 
that the language of these two friends in the Arcadia is such 
as we would not now use, except to women ; and he has 
thrown out some very remarkable observations. ... It 
is unquestionably a remains of the ancient chivalry, when 
men, embarking in the same perilous enterprise together, 
vowed their mutual aid and their personal devotion. The 
dangers of one knight were to be participated, and his honor 
to be maintained, by his brother-in-arms. Such exalted 
friendships, and such interminable affections, often broke out 
both in deeds and words which, to the tempered intercourse 
of our day, offend by their intensity." — Amenities of Litera- 
ture, vol. 2. 



166 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

small which I will disdain to do." Pyrocles 
proceeds to explain that when he first saw in 
Kalander's house the portrait of Philoclea, he 
"quickly received a cruel impression of that 
wonderful passion which to be defined is impos- 
sible, because no words reach to the strange 
nature of it; they only know" it who inwardly 
feel it ; it is called Love." All that he saw and 
heard seemed but to feed the flame, although he 
calls to witness " the eternal spring of virtue," 
that he summoned all reason and philosophy to 
his aid. " Nothing in truth could hold any plea 
with it, but the reverent friendship I bear unto 
you, feeling that there is nothing more terrible to 
a guilty heart than the eye of a respected friend." 
Hearing from Kalander that Basilius was obsti- 
nately bent on keeping his daughters from matri- 
mony, in consequence of the warning of the 
oracle, he had determined to obtain admission to 
the presence of his fair one, in the disguise of an 
Amazon. Basilius, finding him alone in the 
forest near the royal dwelling, and smitten with 
the beauty of the supposed lady, marvelled at 
her solitude. " They are never alone," he replied, 
" that are accompanied by noble thoughts." Pyr- 
ocles passed himself off as the niece of the 
Amazonian Queen, shipwrecked on that coast, 
and had ingratiated himself with the royal fam- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 167 

ily even more successfully than he desired. He 
enjoyed the society of Philoclea, who, not sus- 
pecting his sex, was yet conscious of strange 
heart flutterings in his presence ; but the old king 
had conceived a violent passion for the beautiful 
Amazon, which he displayed by pertinacious 
attention ; and, to crown the ludicrous entangle- 
ment of the knight, Gynecia, the queen, had seen 
through his disguise, and become deeply enam- 
ored of him. Between the plots and counterplots 
which this precious pair contrived for the purpose 
of deceiving each other and securing their own 
aim, Pyrocles had had a very thorny time to pre- 
serve his own dignity, and secure the love of 
Philoclea. 

At this crisis, Musidorus is added to the dram- 
atis personce, and being introduced to them as an 
Arcadian shepherd, he is unsuspectingly received 
into the service of Basilius. Pyrocles is soon 
avenged for the past rebukes of the woman- 
hating Musidorus, by finding that he, too, soon 
takes to solitary rambles and melancholy plaints, 
and hears with malicious pleasure that he is 
ensnared by the fair Pamela. " I find indeed,' 
says the penitent type of myriad successors 
" that all is but lip wisdom which wants experi- 
ence. Well do I see that Love, to a yielding 
heart, is a king ; but to a resisting one, a tyrant," 



168 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Meanwhile the sisters are not insensible to the 
attractions of the young princes, who in due time 
reveal to them their incognito. The latter tell the 
story of their past lives, and describe, in one of the 
fine passages of that nature with which the book 
abounds, the shipwreck that, threw them on the 
coast of Greece. " There arose even with the 
sun a veil of black clouds before his face, which 
shortly, like ink poured into water, had blacked 
all over the face of heaven ; preparing, as it were, 
a mournful stage for a tragedy to be played on. 
For forthwith the winds began to speak louder, 
and, as in a tumultuous kingdom, to think them- 
selves fittest instruments of commandment; and 
blowing whole storms of hail and rain upon them, 
they were sooner in danger than they could 
almost bethink themselves of change. For then 
the traitorous sea began to swell in pride against 
the afflicted navy, under which, while the heaven 
favored them, it had lain so calmly; making 
mountains of itself, over which the tossed and 
tottering ship should climb, to be straight carried 
down again to a pit of hellish darkness, with 
such cruel blows against the side of the ship, that, 
which way soever it went, was still in his malice, 
that there was neither left power to stay nor way 
to escape. And shortly had it so dissevered the 
loving ompany, which the day before had tarried 






SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 169 

together, that most of them never met again, but 
were swallowed up in his never-satisfied mouth. 
There was to be seen the diverse manner of 
minds in distress ; some sat upon the top of the 
poop, weeping and wailing till the sea swallowed 
them ; some one more able to abide death, than 
fear of death, cut his own throat to prevent 
drowning ; some prayed ; and there wanted not 
of them which cursed, as if the heavens could 
not be more angry than they were." An incident 
which they witnessed in the course of their ad- 
ventures, is supposed to have suggested to Shak- 
speare the story of Gloster, in King Lear. Over- 
taken by a violent storm, they had taken refuge 
within a hollow rock, and were auditors of a 
conversation between a blind old man and a 
youth who was leading him ; " both poorly arrayed 
and extremely weather-beaten, yet in both there 
seemed a kind of nobleness not suitable to that 
affliction." The elder proved to be the king of 
Paphlagonia, deprived of his kingdom and his 
sight by a bastard son ; and, attended in his ban- 
ishment by a dutiful, but unloved, legitimate child, 
he had by coaxing and entreaty made his way to 
the summit of this high rock, with the purpose 
of ending his misfortunes by a headlong leap. 

Philoclea is overwhelmed with delight to find 
that her Zelmane is no other than the Prince 



170 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Pyrocles, whose fame had often reached her — 
" such joy as wrought into Pygmalion's mind, 
when he found his beloved image was softer and 
warmer in his folded arms, till at length it ac- 
complished his gladness with a perfect woman's 
shape. Yet doubt would fain have played his 
part in her mind, and called in question how she 
should be assured that Zelmane was Pyrocles. 
But love stood straight up and deposed that a lie 
could not come from the mouth of Zelmane. 
With sweet timidity she confesses the story of 
her faith, and says, ' Thou hast then the victory 
— use it with virtue. Dost thou love me ? Keep 
me then still worthy to be loved.' " 

Numerous pastoral sports and whimsical feats 
of arms " give feathers to the wings of time," as 
Sidney says; but, however entertaining to Arca- 
dian lovers and those of his own day, modern 
taste has so far outrun their quaint insipidity, 
that we refrain from quotation. 

After several weeks interval, during which the 
king and queen ingeniously torture themselves 
and every body else, and the knights maintain 
their constancy and honor, a checkmate is threat- 
ened from a new quarter. Cecropia, Queen of 
Argos, and aunt of the princesses, incensed that 
the marriage overtures of her son Amphialus 
to Philoclea have been refused, and his succession 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 171 

thus lost to the throne of Arcadia, contrives a 
plan to secure the possession of both. So one 
day while the princesses and the pretended Ama- 
zon are regaling themselves with grapes and plums 
in the forest, they are all seized by a party of 
armed men and forcibly carried to a fortified cas- 
tle, built upon a high rock in the midst of a lake. 
Here they are closely confined in separate apart- 
ments, " wanting nothing but liberty and com- 
fort," and not permitted to see or hear from each 
other. Cecropia's object is to compel, by either 
persuasion or force, one of the sisters to marry 
her son ; and Basilius, she argues, will soon die 
from grief at their loss. Amphialus, who is " an 
excellent son of an evil mother, like a rose out of 
a briar," disapproves the stratagem, but accepts 
it as an occasion to plead his cause with Philoclea, 
of whom he is deeply enamored. Arraying him- 
self in black velvet embroidered with pearl, and 
a broad collar of diamonds, rubies, and opals, set 
in white enamel, he betakes himself to her cham- 
ber. The gentle damsel was in very disconsolate 
mood, but " in the book of her beauty there was 
nothing to be read but sorrow ; for kindness was 
blotted out and anger was never there." He 
pleads his cause with much waste of eloquence, 
avowing that her face is his astronomy, her good- 
ness, his philosophy ; to which he receives the 



172 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

frigid assurance that she will find a way to death 
rather than accept him. Cecropia, incensed at 
her obstinacy, and grieved by the despair of her 
son, tries her own persuasive power, masking her 
malice under a loving mien. She begins the 
attack by an artful appeal to her feminine vanity : 
" Fie upon this peevish sadness ! Look upon your 
own body, and see whether it deserve to pine 
away with sorrow! see whether you will have 
these hands fade from their whiteness and soft- 
ness, and become dry, lean, and yellow; and 
make everybody wonder at the change, and say, 
that sure you had used some art before, for if the 
beauties had been natural they would never so 
soon have been blemished. Take a glass, and 
see whether tears become your eyes ; although I 
confess those eyes are able to make tears comely." 
"Alas! " answers Philoclea, " I know not w T hether 
tears become my eyes, but I am sure that my 
eyes, thus beteared, become my fortune." Find- 
ing this tack unsuccessful, Cecropia tries another. 
She pictures the charms of married life, and says 
that she has come to offer her their " true and 
essential happiness." " Have you ever seen a 
pure rose-water kept in a crystal glass ? how fine 
it looks, how sweet it smells, while that beautiful 
glass imprisons it ? Break the prison, and let the 
water take its own course : doth it not embrace 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 173 

dust, and lose all its former sweetness and fair- 
ness ? Truly so are we, if we have not the stay- 
rather than the restraint of crystalline marriage. 
My heart melts to think of the sweet comforts I 
in that time received, when I had never cause to 
care, but the care was doubled ; when I never re- 
joiced, but that I saw my joy shine in another's 
eyes. What shall I say of the free delight which 
the heart might embrace, without the accusing of 
the inward conscience, or the fear of outward 
shame ? And is a solitary life as good as this ? 
Then can one string make as good music as a 
concert ; then can one color set forth a beauty." 

Mother and son are equally unsuccessful ; Phi- 
loclea pines for her captive lover ; is unmoved by 
the splendid gifts daily sent to her by Amphialus, 
and heedless of the delightful music that is nightly 
poured forth beneath her window. As the one 
sister continues intractable, Cecropia points her 
batteries upon the other, hoping that Amphialus 
will turn his affections into the successful channel. 
She proceeds to Pamela's chamber, and hearing 
her voice, pauses to listen. The high-minded 
maiden, resolutely fortifying herself against pres- 
ent and feared calamity, paces the floor "with 
deep and patient thought," and gives utterance 
to her emotion in this beautiful invocation : — 

" O All-seeing Light, and eternal Life of all 



174 TH E LIFE AND TIMES OF 

things! to whom nothing is either so great that it 
may resist, or so small that it is contemned; look 
upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, and let 
thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some 
proportion of deliverance unto me, as to thee shall 
seem most convenient. Let not injury, O Lord, 
triumph over me, and let my faults by thy hand 
be corrected, and make not mine unjust enemy 
the minister of thy justice. But yet, my God, if 
in thy wisdom this be the aptest chastisement for 
my inexcusable folly ; if this low bondage be 
fittest for my over-high desires ; if the pride of my 
not enough humble heart be not enough to be 
broken, O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and joy- 
fully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me 
suffer. Only thus much let me crave of thee, (let 
my craving, O Lord, be accepted of thee, since 
even that proceeds from thee,) let me crave even 
by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction 
I may give myself, that I am thy creature, and 
by thy goodness (which is thyself) that thou wilt 
suffer some beam of thy majesty so to shine into 
my mind, that it may still depend confidently on 
thee. Let calamity be the exercise, but not the 
overthrow, of my virtue ; let their power prevail, 
but prevail not to destruction ; let my greatness 
be their prey; let my pain be the sweetness of 
their revenge ; let them (if so it seem good unto 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I75 

thee) vex me with more and more punishment. 
But, O Lord, let never their wickedness have 
such a hand but that I may carry a pure mind in 
a pure body!"* And pausing awhile — "and, O 
most gracious Lord," said she, " whatever becomes 
of me, preserve the virtuous Musidorus." 

As may be supposed, Cecropia found herself 
again foiled, for if " Philoclea with sweet and 
humble dealing did avoid her assaults, Pamela 
with the majesty of virtue beat them ofT." 

Amphialus and his mother are diverted, for a 
time, by an attack upon the castle, from the parti- 
zans of Basilius. The assailants are driven back, 
after a good display of bravery on both sides, and 
" no sword pays so large a tribute of souls to the 
eternal kingdom as that of Amphialus." One 
knight, who has hitherto been of those who " fight 
and run away," loses his head, and, in his dying 
convulsions, forcing his spurs into his steed, the 
animal rushes so madly into the enemy's ranks as 

* This prayer is celebrated as having been often repeated 
by Charles I. during his imprisonment; and he held in his 
hand, as he ascended the scaffold, the Eikon Basilikae 5 in 
which a copy of it was included. Milton pours upon him a 
vial of puritanical wrath for using a petition " addressed by a 
heathen woman to a heathen god," and quoted from the " vain 
amatorious poem " of the Arcadia. However, as he also cen- 
sures the monarch for plagiarizing passages from David's 
Psalms, the arrow against Sir Philip falls harmless. 



176 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to occasion the proverb that " Policrates was only- 
valiant after his head was cut off." A more 
poetical end is that of Phebilus, who, "having 
long loved Philoclea, though for the meanness of 
his estate he durst not reveal it," is attacked by 
Amphialus, when, " thinking to die, he cries, 
1 O Philoclea! this joys me that I die for thy 
sake ! ' " His antagonist, hearing this, will not 
vouchsafe him the honor of dying for Philoclea, 
but turns his sword another way, " doing him no 
hurt for over much hatred. But what good did 
that to poor Phebilus, if, escaping a valiant hand, 
he was slain by a base soldier, who, seeing him 
so disarmed, thrust him through ? " 

The alarm being dispelled, Cecropia renews her 
attack upon the captive sisters. From Philoclea 
she receives no answer " but a silence sealed up 
in virtue, and so sweetly graced as that in one 
instant it carries with it both grace and humble- 
ness." " Pamela, having wearied herself with 
reading, and disdaining the company of the gen- 
tlewomen appointed to attend her, was working 
upon a purse certain roses and lilies. The flowers 
she had wrought carried such life in them that 
the cunningest painter might have learned of her 
needle ; which, with so pretty a manner, made his* 
careers to and fro the cloth, as if the needle itself 
would have been loth to go from such a mistress, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 177 

but that it hoped to return thitherward very 
quickly again ; the cloth looking with many eyes 
upon her and lovingly embracing the wounds she 
gave it ; the shears also were at hand to behead 
the silk that was grown too short. " Full happy is 
he," begins the artful Cecropia, "to whom a 
purse, by this manner and by this hand wrought, 
is dedicated. In faith he shall have cause to ac- 
count it not as a purse for treasure, but as a 
treasure in itself." " I promise you," says Pamela, 
" I wrought it but to make tedious hours 
believe I thought not of them." The beauty of 
the purse furnishes Cecropia a text to descant upon 
that of Pamela. She dwells in glowing language 
upon her charms, reminds her of her father's de- 
termination to keep aloof all admirers, and asks, 
" Will you suffer your beauty to be hidden in the 
wrinkles of his peevish thoughts?" "If he be 
peevish," replied Pamela, "yet is he my father ; 
and how beautiful soever I be, I am his daughter ; 
God claims at my hand obedience, and makes me 
no judge of his imperfections." Cecropia now 
thinks that if this conscientious maiden can be 
made to doubt the overruling Deity in whom she 
believes, her scruples may be overcome ; and she 
proceeds to attack her faith with the arguments 
that we still hear from bewildered mystics and 
freethinkers. " Foolish fear and ignorance were 

12 



178 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the first inventers of those conceits. Chance is 
the only cause of all things — yesterday was but 
as to-day ; and to-morrow will tread the same 
footsteps as his foregoers ; so as is manifest 
enough that all things follow but the course of its 
own nature, saving only man, who, while by the 
pregnancy of his imagination he strives to things 
supernatural, meanwhile he loseth his own natural 
felicity. Be wise, and that wisdom shall be a 
god unto thee ; be contented, and that is thy 
heaven ; for to think that those powers, if there 
be any such, are moved either by the eloquence 
of our prayers, or in a chafe at the folly of our 
actions, carries as much reason as if flies should 
think, that men take great care which of them 
hums sweetest, and which of them flies nim- 
blest." 

Pamela's indignant reply is the still unanswer- 
able refutation of atheism ; and so forcible and 
clear that it is all well worth transcribing, but we 
can quote only a few passages : — 

"Peace, peace! unworthy to breathe, that dost 
not acknowledge the breath-giver ! most unworthy 
to have a tongue, which speakest against Him 
through whom thou speakest ! you say, yesterday 
was as to-day. What doth that argue but that 
there is a constancy in the everlasting Governor ? 
Would you have an inconstant God? since we 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 



179 



count a man foolish that is inconstant. He is 
not seen, you say, and yet you might see enough 
of the Creator in his works, if you were not like 
such who for sport-sake willingly hoodwink them- 
selves, to receive blows the easier. You say be- 
cause we know not the causes of things, therefore 
fear was the mother of superstition ; nay, because 
we know that each effect hath a cause, that hath 
engendered a true and lively devotion. Do we 
not see goodly cause for this lively faith in all 
around ? For this lovely world of which we are, 
and in which we live, hath not its being by 
chance ; on which opinion of chance, it is beyond 
marvel by what chance any brain could stumble. 
For if it be eternal, as you would seem to con- 
ceive it, eternity and chance are things unsufTer- 
able together ; for that is chanceable which hap- 
peneth ; and if it happen, there was a time before 
it happened when it might not have happened ; 
or else it did not happen ; and so, if chanceable, 
not eternal ; and if eternal, not of chance. And 
as absurd it is to think that if it had a beginning, 
its beginning was derived from chance ; for chance 
could never make all things of nothing; and if 
there were substances before, which by chance 
should meet to make up this world, thereon fol- 
lows another bottomless pit of absurdities; for 
then those substances must needs have been from 



180 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ever, and so eternal; and that eternal causes 
should bring forth chanceable effects, is as sensi- 
ble as that the sun should be the author of dark- 
ness. Again, if it were chanceable, then was it 
not necessary ; whereby you take away all conse- 
quents. But we see in all things, in some respect 
or other, necessity of consequence; therefore in 
reason we must know that causes were necessary. 
Besides, chance is variable, or else it is not to be 
called chance ; but we see this world is steady 
and permanent. If nothing but chance had glued 
these pieces of this all, the heavy parts would 
have gone infinitely downwards, the light infinitely 
upward, and so never have met to have made up 
this goodly body. Perfect order, perfect beauty, 
perfect constancy, if these be the children of 
chance, let wisdom be counted the root of wick- 
edness ! But you may perhaps affirm, that one 
universal nature is the knitting together of these 
many parts, to such an excellent unity. If you 
mean a nature of wisdom, goodness, and provi- 
dence, which knows what it doth, then say you 
that which I seek of you; but if you mean a 
nature as we speak of the fire, which goeth up- 
ward it knows not why, and of the nature of 
the sea, which in ebbing and flowing, seems to 
observe so just a dance, and yet understands no 
music : it is still but the same absurdity, super- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 181 

scribed with another title. This world cannot 
otherwise consist, but by a mind of wisdom, 
which governs it ; which, whether you will allow 
to be the Creator thereof, as undoubtedly he is, or 
the soul and Governor thereof; — most certain it is, 
that whether he govern all, or make all, his power 
is above either his creatures or his government. 
And if his power be above all things, then, con- 
sequently, it must needs be infinite, since there is 
nothing above it to limit it. For, beyond which 
there is nothing, must needs be boundless and in- 
finite. If his power be infinite, then likewise 
must his knowledge be infinite. If his knowledge 
and power be infinite, then must needs his good- 
ness and justice march in the same rank ; for in- 
finiteness of power and knowledge, without like 
measure of goodness must necessarily bring forth 
destruction and ruin, and not ornament and pres- 
ervation. Since, then, there is a God, and an 
all-knowing God, so as he seeth into the darkest 
of all natural secrets, which is the heart of man ; 
and sees therein the deepest dissembled thoughts ; 
nay, sees the thoughts before they be thought ; — 
since he is just, to exercise his might ; and mighty 
to perform his justice ; assure thyself that the 
time will come, when thou shalt know that power, 
by feeling it ; when thou shalt see his wisdom, in 
the manifesting thy shamefulness ; and shalt only 



182 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

perceive him to have been a Creator in thy de- 
struction " ! 

" And here," says Sidney, " Cecropia, like a 
bat, (which, though it have eyes to discern the 
sun, yet hath so evil eyes that it cannot delight 
in the sun,) found a truth, but could not love it." 

The story of the beleaguered princesses having 
spread through Greece, many renowned paladins 
came to their rescue, and for a long time we hear 
only the trumpet of victory, and see the glitter- 
ing armor and pawing steeds of the battle-field. 
One knight rides a milk-white charger, whose 
mane and tail are dyed crimson, his caparison 
is an imitation of vine-branches, and hung with 
clusters of grapes ; the rider is in blue armor ; 
on his shield is a grayhound outrunning his fel- 
lows, and the motto, " The glory, not the prey." 
Of another, named Argalus, there is a pretty 
story told, which we will epitomize, as illustrative 
of the character of Sir Philip's favorite heroes. 
He is about to marry the beautiful Parthenia, 
when a discarded rival, incensed with his own 
refusal, forms a fiendish plot to avenge himself, 
and punish the lovers. Obtaining an interview 
with Parthenia, under the mask of friendship, he 
forcibly seizes her, and rubs upon her face a viru- 
lent poison, which occasions a long illness, and 
utterly destroys her beauty. Argalus, who had 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 183 

gone away to invite his wedding guests, returns 
home with joyful expectancy, only to find his 
bride in this lamentable state, and heroically re- 
solved to release him from his vows. In vain he 
protests against the Iphigenian sacrifice, and de- 
clares that his love is but deepened by her mis- 
fortunes. Parthenia long resists his importunity, 
and finally quits the country without leaving any 
clue to her wanderings. In the bitterness of de- 
spair, Argalus starts off on a crusade against his 
rival, who had enlisted in the war of the Helots, 
and in the course of his migrations becomes a 
guest of Kalander, at the same time with Pyro- 
cles and Musidorus. One day, as they are all dis- 
coursing together in the banqueting hall, Argalus 
is told that a young and noble lady desires an 
audience with him. With amazed delight he 
beholds, as he supposes, his lost Parthenia, re- 
stored to all her native loveliness ; but the lady, 
with grave dignity of mien, tells him that he is 
mistaken ; she is a niece of Helen, Queen of Cor- 
inth, and a cousin of Parthenia, whom she nearly 
resembles. " Parthenia," she says, " sought refuge 
in Corinth, and died a few days since, leaving for 
Argalus a message which she had promised to 
deliver." With modest grace, the damsel com- 
municates Parthenia's request, that Argalus would 
receive and espouse this friend, whose character 



184 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and person are so similar to her own, that she 
cannot fail to prove an acceptable substitute. 
Argalus thanks her for a proffer so complimen- 
tary, and avows himself ready to fulfil all her 
behests as her slave through life ; that if his heart 
were his to give, she should have that too ; but it 
was in the grave of Parthenia, and he felt that he 
should not long tarry after her. " If it were only 
her beauty that I love," he says, " I should love 
you who have the same beauty ; but it was Par- 
thenia's self, with a love which no likeness can 
make, no commandment dissolve, no foulness 
defile, and no death finish." The veritable Par- 
thenia, who has been cured by the Queen's 
physician, and has tested by this stratagem the 
constancy of her lover, now confesses her iden- 
tity ; the nuptials are celebrated, and Kalander, 
with his other guests, unites in them with friendly 
zeal. After the daughters of Basilius are carried 
off to the old fortress by the lake, he sends a 
request to his kinsman, Argalus, to challenge 
Amphialus for their rescue. Here follows an 
exquisite little picture of married bliss : — 

" The messenger made haste, and found Arga- 
lus at a castle of his own, sitting in a parlor 
with the fair Parthenia, he reading aloud the 
stories of Hercules, she by him, as to hear him 
read ; but while his eyes looked on the book, she 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I35 

looked on his eyes, sometimes staying him with 
some pretty question, not so much to be resolved 
of the doubt, as to give him occasion to look 
upon her. A happy couple, he joying in her, she 
joying in herself, because she enjoyed him ; both 
increased their riches by giving to each other, 
each making one life double, because they made 
a double life one, where desire never wanted 
satisfaction, nor satisfaction ever bred satiety; 
he ruling, because she would obey; or, rather, 
because she would obey, she therein ruling." 

This halcyon repose is rudely broken by the 
summons which Argalus feels imperious upon 
his honor. He resists, with the tenderness of a 
true hero, the tears and entreaties of his wife, 
and sallies forth to the fight. After a long and 
ardent combat, in which miracles of valor are 
achieved on both sides, he falls mortally wounded, 
and Parthenia, who has made her way to the 
scene of action, receives his parting breath. A 
few days after, Amphialus is challenged by a 
newly-arrived knight, called the Knight of the 
Tomb, who is arrayed in black armor, painted in 
resemblance of an open grave ; the greaves upon 
his legs painted with crawling worms, and his 
steed hung with cypress branches. Rushing furi- 
ously into the melee, the unknown champion soon 
meets the death he courts ; and as his helmet is 



186 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

unloosed, the long golden locks and fair features 
betray the loving wife, who has thus thrown away 
the life no longer to be endured.* The whole story 
teems with irresistible pathos, and is told in a lan- 
guage that is unexceptionable to even modern taste. 
Indeed, the book abounds with so many passages 
of unaffected beauty, that we are insensibly led 
along through its obsolete orthography, until we 
are fairly lost amid the peaceful groves of Arca- 
dia, listening to the oaten pipes of its shepherds, 
or hurrying with its heroes from gentle vows be- 
neath a star-lit sky, to the field where their inju- 
ries are redressed, and their valor vindicates the 
right.f We might multiply quotations of equal 

* " Where is the antique glory now become, 
That whylome wont in weraen to appeare ? 
Where be the brave atchievements doen by some ? 
Where be the batteilles, where the shield and speare, 
And all the conquests which them high did reare, 
That matter made for famous poets verse ? " 

f " The waies, through which my weary steps I guyde 
In this delightful land of Faery, 
Are so exceeding spacious and wyde, 
And sprinckled with such sweet variety 
Of all that pleasant is to eare or eye, 
That I, nigh ravisht with rare thoughts delight, 
My tedious travell doe forget thereby ; 
And, when I 'gin to feele decay of might, 
It strength to me supplies, and chears my dulled spright " 
Spenser's Faerie Queene. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 187 

interest through a large volume ; but as our object 
is merely to present a specimen of the work that 
engaged some of the idle hours of Philip Sidney, 
we must turn away with this little garland of 
flowers, regretfully leaving a prairie-full behind. 
Hastening therefore to the conclusion of the 
story, we will simply add, that during the pro- 
longed siege the damsels are treated with great 
barbarity by Cecropia, and each is by a strata- 
gem made to believe that her sister is beheaded 
before her eyes. Amphialus discovers at length 
the cruelty of his mother, and in his indignation 
pursues her with a drawn sword to the roof of 
the castle. Supposing that he intends to strike 
her, she throws herself from the parapet, and is, 
of course, instantly killed; and Amphialus, horror- 
struck that he has caused his mother's death, falls 
upon his sabre and dies. 

The princesses are restored to their home, and, 
soon after, just as they are preparing to elope 
with the young princes who have performed pro- 
digious feats in their behalf, Basilius is accident- 
ally poisoned in such a manner that suspicion 
falls upon them. They are arrested, and about 
to be executed, when the King of Byzantium, 
the father of Pyrocles, appears with a large army, 
vindicates the princesses, and restores order to 
Arcadia ; the king and queen make mutual con- 



188 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

fession of their folly, and the lovers are united, 
and, like all other married people, " live very 
happily all the rest of their lives." 

We cannot close the volume without culling 
at random a few more of the thoughts that enrich 
its pages, and indicate the fertility of the mind 
from which they emanated. 

" Give tribute, but not oblation, to human wis- 
dom." 

" Longer I would not wish to draw breath, 
than I may keep myself unspotted of any hei- 
nous crime." 

" In the clear mind of virtue, treason can find 
no hiding-place." 

" The only disadvantage of an honest heart is 
credulity." 

" The hero's soul may be separated from his 
body, but never alienated from the remembrance 
of virtue." 

" Doing good is the only certainly happy action 
of a man's life." 

" The journey of high honor lies not in smooth 
ways." 

" Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he is 
sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he 
is, that he shall shoot higher than he who aims 
but at a bush." 

" Remember that in all miseries, lamenting be- 
comes fools, and action, the wise." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. jgg 

" The great, in affliction, bear a countenance 
more princely than they were wont ; for it is 
the temper of highest hearts, like the palm-tree, 
to strive most upward when it is most bur- 
thened." 

" The perfect hero passeth through the multi- 
tude as a man that neither disdains a people, nor 
yet is any thing tickled with their flattery." 

" In a brave bosom, honor cannot be rocked 
asleep by affection." 

" Contention for trifles can get but a trifling 
victory." 

" Prefer truth, before the maintaining of an 
opinion." 

" A man of true honor thinks himself greater 
in being subject to his word given, than in being 
lord of a principality." 

" Joyful is woe for a noble cause, and welcome 
all its miseries." 

" There is nothing evil but what is within us ; 
the rest is either natural or accidental." 

" While there is hope left, let not the weakness 
of sorrow make the strength of resolution lan- 
guish." 

" Who frowns at others' feasts, had better bide 
away." 

" Friendship is so rare, as it is to be doubted, 
whether it be a thing indeed, or but a word." 



290 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

" Prefer your friend's profit before your own 
desire." 

" A just man hateth the evil, but not the evil- 
doer." 

" One look (in a clear judgment) from a fair 
and virtuous woman is more acceptable than all 
the kindnesses so prodigally bestowed by a 
wanton beauty." 

" It is folly to believe that he can faithfully 
love, who does not love faithfulness." 

" Who doth desire that his wife should be 
chaste, first be he true ; for truth doth deserve 
truth." 

" It is no less vain to wish death than it is 
cowardly to fear it." 

" Every thing that is mine, even to my life, 
is hers I love, but the secret of my friend is not 
mineP 

We will close with a parting address of friend- 
ship, leaving a mine of wealth behind. 

" If I bare thee love, for mine own sake ; and 
that our friendship grew because I, for my part, 
might rejoice to enjoy such a friend ; I should 
now so thoroughly feel mine own loss, that I 
should call the heaven and earth to witness, how 
cruelly you rob me of my greatest comfort, (rob- 
ing me of yourself,) measuring the breach of 
friendship by mine own passion. But because 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 191 

indeed I love thee for thyself; and in my judg- 
ment judge of thy worthiness to be loved, I am 
content to build ray pleasure upon thy comfort ; 
and then will I deem my hap in friendship, great, 
when I shall see thee, whom I love, happy ; let 
me be only sure that thou lovest me still ; the 
only price of true affection ! Go therefore on, 
with the guide of virtue, and service of fortune. — 
Let thy love be loved ; thy desires, prosperous ; 
thy escape, safe ; and thy journey, easy. Let 
every thing yield its help to thy desert ! For 
my part, absence shall not take thee from mine 
eyes ; nor afflictions bar me from gladding in thy 
good : nor a possessed heart keep thee from the 
place it hath for ever allotted thee. My only 
friend ! I joy in thy presence, but I joy more in 
thy good. That friendship brings forth the fruits 
of enmity, which prefers its own tenderness be- 
fore its friend's advantage. Farewell!" 

Horace Walpole, with characteristic flippancy, 
pronounced the Arcadia a " tedious, lamentable 
pastoral." He either never read it, or had not 
the discernment to see its merits. In Sidney's 
own day, and long after, it was the favorite 
romance of the courtiers and ladies of England ; 
it went through fourteen editions, and was trans- 
lated into several languages. Shakspeare bor- 
rowed many incidents from it ; Sir Walter Ra- 



192 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

leigh made it the companion of his prison hours ; 
eminent writers of the next century repeatedly 
allude to it with praise, and many of the pretty 
conceits for which later writers receive credit, 
may be traced back to its glittering pages. 
Cowper writes in the Task: 

" Would I had fallen upon those happier days 
That poets celebrate, those golden times 
And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings, 
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose." 

The pastoral songs and comic plays inter- 
spersed through the book are unworthy of the 
rest; but they are not linked with the story, and 
are only a tribute to the still crude taste of the 
Elizabethan age. The varied emotions of the 
human heart, the fervor of love and truth of 
friendship, are portrayed in their purest and 
highest form ; and to the simple earnestness of 
nature is added the ideal grandeur of imagina- 
tion. It is not only as a reflection of the mind 
of Sir Philip Sidney that the Arcadia is valuable, 
but as a rich field of poetic thought and imagery, 
for the reward of the careful gleaner. In the 
public library, plethoric with the lore of nations, 
this quaint old quarto may rest upon its own 
peculiar merits; although, it must be admitted, 
they often seem to be hopelessly buried in sen- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 393 

tences which are involved, pedantic, and like the 
apparel of the times, cumbered with tinsel and 
embroidery. It was not intended by Sidney for 
publication, and, in fact, it did not appear in 
print until after his death. Written merely to 
beguile his leisure hours at Wilton, and to please 
the sister whom he tenderly loved, he expresses a 
fear in the preface to her that, " like the spider's 
web, it will be thought only fit to be swept 
away." " You desired me to do it, and your 
desire to my heart is an absolute commandment. 
It is not for severer eyes, being but a trifle, and 
triflingly handed." — " Your dear self can best 
witness the manner ; being done in loose sheets, 
most of it in your presence." 

We conclude this chapter with an interesting 
extract from the London Athenaeum, Jan. 2, 
1858,— 

" In an old folio copy of the Arcadia, preserved 
at Wilton, have been found two beautiful and 
interesting relics, — a lock of Queen Elizabeth's 
hair, and an original poem, in the hand of Sir 
Philip Sidney. The hair was given by the fair 
hands of the Queen to her young hero. The 
poet repaid the precious gift in the following 
lines : — 

' Her inward worth all outward worth transcends, 
Envy her merits with regret commends ; 
13 



194 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Like sparkling gems her virtues draw the light, 
And in her conduct she was always bright. 
When she imparts her thoughts her words have force, 
And sense and wisdom flow in sweet discourse.' 

" The date of this exchange of gifts was 1583, 
when the Queen was forty, and the Knight, 
twenty-nine. 

"Elizabeth's hair is very fine, soft and silky, 
with the undulation of water ; its color, a fair au- 
burn or golden brown, without a tinge of red, as 
her detractors assert, but the soft lines are flecked 
with light, and shine as though powdered with 
gold dust. In every country under the sun, such 
hair would be pronounced beautiful." 




SIK PHILIP SIDNEY. 105 




CHAPTER VIII. 

ETURNING to the annals of the life of 
Philip Sidney, we infer that he remained 
at Wilton until 1581, when he represented 
in Parliament his native county of Kent, and is 
sometimes incidentally mentioned as a member 
of select committees on important subjects. He 
was now widely known as a chivalrous and pat- 
riotic man, with the will to do and the soul to 
dare whenever the right required defence or the 
wrong demanded redress. He had not, it is 
true, performed any startling acts of heroism ; nor 
had applauding multitudes borne him in the tri- 
umphal car, or crowned him with the bays of the 
victor ; but his capacities for action in any glori- 
ous arena, were as manifest to those who knew 
him as is the strength of a giant in his repose. 
He was urged by two military leaders on the 
continent to join their enterprises. One w T as 
Prince Casimir, who conducted to the aid of 
Holland an army of German mercenaries, under 
the pay and patronage of Queen Elizabeth. 



196 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Another was Don Antonio, one of the seven 
claimants to the throne of Portugal, after the 
death of Henry V. Sidney wisely declined both 
these invitations. Casimir was an obstinate, 
reckless adventurer, and his marauding troops 
only pillaged the country they had engaged to 
protect. The Portuguese insurgent had no just 
claim to the crown, and neither the wisdom nor 
the nerve to sustain its assumption. The long 
talons of that neighboring bird of prey, Philip 
II., quietly clutched the kingdom, and the dis- 
crowned monarch retired to Paris, and died of 
grief for its loss. 

A painful event to Sidney, about this time, was 
the death of his friend Languet. Two years 
before, the latter visited England for the sole 
purpose of seeing one whom he love^d with pa- 
rental fondness and watched with parental care. 
Distinguished attention was offered him by the 
English, whom he pronounced the happiest na- 
tion in Christendom. He was greatly revered by 
his own countrymen ; and Dr. Zouch says that 
" the history of his life would be the history of 
Europe for near a century, as none of his rank 
in society had a more powerful influence in the 
direction of public affairs." * All the eminent 
authors of the day gave to his learning and his 
* Zouch's Life of Sir Philip Sidney. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 197 

moral merit their concurrent praise ; and Mornay 
Da Plessis wrote of him, " He was in reality what 
many wish to appear to be ; he lived as the best 
of men should die." 

This truly illustrious man was buried at Ant- 
werp with great ceremony, William of Orange 
acting as chief mourner. 

But, hand in hand, Tragedy and Comedy 
walk the world together. As the one flings 
open the door of the sepulchre, the other rings 
in his ear the silver bells of mirth. From the 
grave of Languet, to which his mournful fancy 
wandered, Sidney was summoned to take part 
in one of those displays of knight-errantry which 
constituted so marked a feature of Elizabeth's 
reign, and were intended chiefly as censers for 
the incense that was her vital element. Not 
content that every man should kneel as he en- 
tered her presence — Lord Burleigh only being 
exempted in his later years on account of the 
gout — and not satiated with the servile homage 
constantly breathed to her in private, she some- 
times expected a shower of public flatteries. 

The pause in her matrimonial negotiations, 
after the letter of Philip Sidney, was farther 
extended by the civil discords of France, which, 
with his own intrigues for the government of 
the Netherlands, so occupied the Duke of Anjou 



198 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

as to leave him little time for dalliance in unre- 
warded lovemaking. But Simiers, the subtle 
pleader, was left in England to watch the pro- 
gress of affairs, and to carry significant messages 
back and forth ; and so cleverly did he brush away 
from his master's portrait the gathering dust of 
time, that its attractions really seemed to brighten 
with the lapse of years. In October, 1581, Anjou, 
resolving upon a final master-stroke, sent over a 
splendid legation to bring matters to a close. 
The "crowned nymph" as poor Stubbs called 
her, chose to receive the French peers in a sort of 
fairy palace which she had built for the occasion 
at Whitehall, and there she entertained them 
with banquets and pageants, while her ministers 
were preparing the marriage articles. This spa- 
cious structure was built of timber and canvas, 
and lighted by nearly three hundred windows, 
and on each side were ten galleries for spectators. 
The walls were spangled with gold, and hung 
with festoons of fruits, flowers, and garlands of 
ivy and bay leaves. The lofty dome was painted 
blue, to imitate the sky, where the commingling 
of stars, sunbeams, and clouds, with the royal 
arms must have suggested the idea of a general 
eruption in the firmament. 

Beside the tilts and tourneys, and other enter- 
tainments, an allegorical device, called a triumph, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 19 9 

was enacted by several of the young courtiers, 
among whom was Philip Sidney, whose presence 
seemed necessary to give the finishing touch to 
every festal rite. Let us fancy the long galleries 
filled with lovely women and gallant cavaliers in 
their grandest ruffs and most elaborate hose and 
doublets, while bands of music pour sweet har- 
monies upon the air. At one end of the tilting- 
ground is a lofty castle or fortress, termed the 
Castle of Perfect Beauty, and in it, visible to all 
the crowd sits the Queen, still fair and handsome, 
and smiling blandly on the gay illusion. Six 
trumpeters enter the enchanted circle, and an- 
nounce the first of four knights who propose to 
attack the fortress, and obtain possession of its 
prize. The Earl of Arundel, in gilt armor and 
on a richly caparisoned steed, leads the van, at- 
tended by four pages and twenty squires, all of 
whom are draped in yellow doublets, crimson 
velvet hose trimmed with gold lace, and crimson 
velvet hats with gold bands and yellow feathers. 
Thirty yeomen follow, dressed in the same colors, 
of less costly material. 

Then rides in Lord Windsor, also in gilt armor ; 
his four pages and twenty-four gentlemen in short 
cloaks of scarlet, and doublets and hose of tawny 
orange, black velvet hats with silver bands and 
white feathers, silvered rapiers and scabbards of 



200 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

black velvet; and his- trumpeters and threescore 
yeoman in similar array. 

* " Then proceeded Maister Philip Sidneie, in 
verie sumptuous manner, with armor, part blew, 
and the rest gilt and engraven, with foure spare 
horsses, having caparisons and furniture verie 
rich and costlie, as some of cloth of gold im- 
brodered with pearle, and some imbrodered with 
gold and silver feathers, verie richlie and cunning- 
lie wrought ; he had foure pages that rode on his 
four spare horsses, who had cassocke coats and 
Venetian hose, all of cloth of silver, laied with 
gold lace, and hats of the same with gold bands 
and white feathers, and each one a paire of white 
buskins. Then had he thirtie gentlemen and 
yeomen, and foure trumpetters who were all in 
cassock coats, and Venetian hose of yellow velvet 
laied with silver lace, yellow velvet caps with 
silver bands and white feathers, and everie one a 
paire of white buskins ; and they had upon their 
coats a scrowle or band of silver, which came 
scarf-wise over the shoulder, and so down under 
the arme, with this posie or sentence written upon 
it, both before and behind, l Sic nos non nobis? " f 

* Hollinshed's Chronicles. 

f " Thus are we, but not for ourselves " — probably intend- 
ing to express the idea that he jested to amuse others, rather 
than himself. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 201 

Sir Fulke Greville brings up the rear in equal 
splendor, his attendants being apparalled in 
orange and gold. 

After various brilliant evolutions, and a num- 
ber of long harangues, in which the Castle of 
Beauty is summoned to surrender, and of course 
refuses, a grand assault is made upon it by 
means of scaling-ladders, cannons loaded with 
sweet powders and perfumes, flowers, love-let- 
ters, and similar deadly weapons. Several other 
knights come to aid the besiegers, two of them 
representing Adam and Eve in armor, decorated 
with painted apples and figleaves, and helmets 
covered with long hair. Another, with dishev- 
elled locks and woful gestures, personates De- 
spair. But the fortress proves invulnerable, and at 
length each assailant presents an olive-branch to 
the Queen, in token of submission. Her Majesty 
graciously thanks the combatants, and is pleased 
with the gay masquerade that testifies to the 
French ambassadors the loyalty and admiration 
of her subjects. 

The arrival of the Duke multiplied these nup- 
tial festivities, in which, as Motley says, " noth- 
ing was omitted but the nuptials." For several 
months, the Queen played the drama of caprice 
which had long kept her subjects and her suitor 
in perpetual agitation, until the latter hastily took 



202 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

his departure, irritated beyond endurance by hef 
pitiful vacillation, and tired of a ten years' chase 
after the ignis fatuus of a crown. The States of 
Belgium had given him a limited sovereignty, 
with the title of Duke of Brabant, in the hope of 
securing for themselves religious toleration and 
defence against the tyranny of Spain ; his pro- 
spective alliance with Elizabeth, seeming to 
promise the united protection of England and 
France. He was accompanied, on his return 
thither, by a brilliant cortege of English gentle- 
men of high degree, sent by the Queen in token 
of her good will. 

The Lords Hunsdon, Howard, and Leicester, 
Philip Sidney, and a hundred or two besides, 
landed at Flushing with the Duke and his own 
splendid retinue. William of Orange, the ever- 
faithful sentinel, was there to greet him with a 
large deputation ; and amid music, artillery, and 
acclamations, they were escorted to an elegant 
banquet, which was furnished with the same 
astonishing prodigality of sugar utensils and 
ornaments as were those given in Venice to 
Henry III. of France. After a week of gala 
days and nights, they were all conveyed in fifty- 
four vessels to Antwerp, and made an imposing 
entree into that opulent capital. The military 
companies in their bright uniforms, the Han- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 203 

seatic merchants in their old German costume, 



the city functionaries in black velvet and gold 
chains, and the cavalcade of illustrious men from 
three neighboring countries, marched in stately 
procession through triumphal arches, flashing 
torches, and bands of martial music ; and for 
many days orations were delivered, compliments 
exchanged, and allegories acted, until everybody 
must have been exhausted, and the English lords 
very glad to set sail homeward. 

Through all these glittering ceremonials, Sid- 
ney found time for extensive reading, and con- 
stant association with men of letters, of whom 
he was ever the liberal patron. He accumulated 
a large and choice library, employing agents to 
purchase for him at the annual fairs in Leipsic, 
Frankfort, and other towns. We read contin- 
ually of books that were dedicated to him by 
the most distinguished authors of England, Ger- 
many, and France. Scipio Gentilis, a professor 
of law in Oxford, and celebrated as a Latin versi- 
fier, addressed him in this eulogistic strain : — 

" Others admire in you, Philip Sidney, the 
splendor of your birth — your genius in your 
childhood, capable of all philosophy — your hon- 
orable embassy undertaken in your youth, and 
the experience obtained from visiting the cities 
and viewing the manners of so many countries — 



204 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the exhibition of your personal valor and prowess 
in the public spectacles and equestrian exercises, 
in your manhood; — let others admire all these 
qualities. I not only admire, but I love and vener- 
ate you, because you regard poetry so much as 
to excel in it ; nor will I omit any opportunity 
of acknowledging my obligations to you, as far 
as it is in my power." 

Banco, a learned theologian, inscribes to Sid- 
ney his biography of the distinguished philoso- 
pher Ramus, who, as heretofore stated, was one 
of the victims of the massacre at Paris. " With- 
out flattery," he says, " I pronounce you to be a 
perfect image and resemblance of nobility. For, 
not to mention your descent from the family 
of the Earls of Warwick, eminently illustrious 
throughout all England, your virtue, outshining 
the splendor of an high lineage, seems to me a 
theme of just encomium. I remember well, 
when I first saw you, when I first contemplated 
with wonder your uncommon endowments of 
mind and body; I remember well, I say, the 
words of Gregory, who declared the Angli, or 
English, that were at Rome, to be really angels." 
If this sounds like fulsome panegyric, we must 
remember that it was a hearty and honest senti- 
ment, uttered in an age of such comparative 
simplicity, that language was then used to ex- 
press thought, and not to conceal it. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 205 

A work on military tactics was dedicated to 
him, because, as the author says, he " found none 
more forward to further and favor martial knowl- 
edge ; being of himself most ready and adven- 
turous in all exercises of war and chivalry." 

Richard Hakluyt, the renowned cosmographer, 
inscribed his first collection of voyages to this 
" most generous promoter of all ingenious and 
useful knowledge." Lipsius, the scholar and 
critic, in a similar instance, addressed him as 
u the bright star of Britain, on whom light is 
copiously diffused by Virtue, by the Muses, by 
the Graces, and by Fortune." 

Sidney never saw the noontide glory of the 
Elizabethan day of literature. It was now but 
in the purple dawn, to which his own taste and 
talent lent many rays of brightness. He was 
already known as a poet, and very soon he wrote 
an Essay, called the " Defence of Poesy," which 
is believed to be the first critical work of merit in 
the English language. The names of Shak- 
speare, Ben Johnson, Raleigh, Greene, Drayton, 
Davies, Chapman, and others, were yet un- 
known ; and, with the exception of Sidney and 
Spenser, there were no poetical celebrities whose 
effusions have any interest for modern readers. 

The author of the " Faerie Queen " was born 
to that frequent inheritance of genius — poverty; 



206 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

but the friendship which he formed at Oxford 
with Sidney and E-aleigh, and the patronage of 
the Earl of Leicester, had secured his present 
exemption from those sordid cares that so vex 
the poet's soul. The first was a most kind and 
generous friend ; he invited him to Penshurst, 
where they spent several weeks together, and 
induced him to transfer his attention from pas- 
toral to heroic verse. Mankind are probably 
indebted to this piece of advice for that grand 
and vivid epic which has given delight to them, 
and renown to its creator. The early portions 
of the " Faerie Queen " were submitted to the 
criticism of Sir Philip, and there is a story, (not, 
however, very reliable,) that when he heard the 
description of Despair, in the ninth canto of 
the first book, he was so transported with admi- 
ration, as to direct his steward to present the 
author with fifty pounds ; when the second 
stanza was read, he ordered the sum to be 
doubled ; at the third, he called for two hundred 
pounds, and commanded its immediate payment 
lest he should be induced to give away all hr 
possessed. 

Gabriel Harvey was another learned friend of 
Sidney, but rather pretentious and pedantic, and 
only remembered for his attempts to introduce 
the Latin hexameter into English verse. All his 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 207 

contemporaries were somewhat infected with his 
example. Sidney followed it, in some of the ec- 
logues of the Arcadia, and even Spenser himself, 
notwithstanding his admission that the English 
hexameter has much the effect of " a lame gos- 
ling that draweth one leg after her, or of a lame 
dog that holdeth one leg up." 

Sir Fulke Greville, afterward Lord Brooke, 
was the relative and the most intimate friend 
of Sidney; they were of the same age, and 
both allied 

" In brave pursuit of chivalrous emprise." 

A terrace near the seat of the former in War- 
wickshire, is still pointed out as the spot where 
they walked together on summer mornings, and 
held the genial converse of kindred souls. The 
poems of Greville, though quite celebrated in their 
day, are now known only to the curious searchers 
into literature, their harsh and pedantic style be- 
ing a cumbrous vehicle for lofty sentiment and 
ingenious imagery. They consist of two trage- 
dies, and a hundred love sonnets, in one of which 
he addresses his mistress as " Fair Dog ! " He 
wrote a memoir of his early friend, and, in an 
inscription which he composed for his own mon- 
ument, he expressed his love and admiration in 
the significant climax, 



208 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

FULKE GrEVILLE, SERVANT TO Q,UEEN ELIZ- 
ABETH, Counsellor to King James, and Friend 
to Sir Philip Sidney." 

Even the most unpretending sketch of Sir 
Philip Sidney would be incomplete without some 
notice of his " Defence of Poesy," (or as it was 
termed by him, " Apologie for Poesie,") a work 
which is justly celebrated as the most finished 
prose production of that era, and as the basis of 
numberless dissertations that have since appeared 
on the same subject. If it seem remarkable that 
the " divine art " should require defence, it must 
be remembered that no master hand had touched 
the lyre in England, since the days of Chaucer 
and Gower, who lived when Petrarch and Dante 
woke Italy with its echoes. The few subsequent 
poets, though not destitute of merit, had done 
nothing to sustain its dignity or elevate its tone. 
In an age that with the chivalric spirit of the 
past, singularly blended great intellectual activ- 
ity, laborious research, and a freedom of speech 
which has been almost refined away in our 
more fastidious civilization, it is not surprising 
that satirists were numerous, keen, and crit- 
ical. The Puritans, too, with ali the zeal of a 
new-born sect, anathematized poetry in merciless 
measure. A creature born in sin and meriting 
perdition, they argued, should devote his hours 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 209 

to penance and prayer, not to syren melodies and 
carnal songs of pleasure. The pilgrim through 
a vale of tears, had no right to prate of the 
allurements of beauty, or dream amid the chi- 
meras of an unholy brain. In the judgment of 
these stern old reformers, as sorcery bewitched the 
people, so poetry bewitched language. Scorning, 
as they did, both the authority and the vices of 
aristocracy, they equally scorned its refinements 
and its culture. Thus the glowing words of 
passion and of love, stirred into rhyme and 
rhythm by the poet's wand, seemed to them 
allied to the sensual more than to the intellec- 
tual, and to be figments of heathen philosophy, 
rather than emanations of Christian intelli- 
gence. 

It was to combat both the carping critics and 
the sturdy reformers, that this young champion 
sallied forth, armed with the simple but effective 
weapons of reason and of truth. Of his success 
we leave our readers to judge. 

He begins by the announcement that having 
" slipped into the title of a poet," he desires to 
say something in defence of " that art which, from 
almost the highest estimation of learning, is 
fallen to be the laughing-stock of children." He 
alludes to its antiquity, and argues that in all 

14 



210 THE LIFE AND TIMES OP 

countries it " opens the portals to all other knowl- 
edge." Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod were the 
fathers of Grecian learning ; the fables of Am- 
phion and Orpheus were tributes to musical verse ; 
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio made Italy the 
" treasure-house of science ; " Chaucer and Gower 
were the morning stars of England's day of song. 
The philosophers of Greece garlanded their phi- 
losophy with the flowers of poesy, and Herodotus 
added the charm of poetic fiction to win atten- 
tion to his facts. In Wales, poetry had outdone 
all art and science ; " in Ireland, where learning 
goes very bare, yet are their poets held in devout 
reverence. Even among the most barbarous and 
simple Indians, where no writing is, yet have 
they their poets, who sing of their ancestors' 
deeds, and praises of their gods." He speaks of 
the high esteem in which the poet was held in 
Rome, being called Vates, a diviner or prophet ; 
and alludes to the " heavenly poesie " of the 
Hebrew Psalmist. He proceeds to contrast the 
art with other arts and sciences : — 

" There is no art delivered unto mankind, that 
hath not the works of Nature for its principal 
object, without which they could not consist, and 
on which they so depend, as they become Actors 
and Players, as it were, of what Nature will have 
set forth. So doth the Astronomer look upon 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 211 

the stars, and that he hath set down what order 
Nature hath taken therein. So doth the Arith- 
metician and Geometrician in their divers sorts 
of quantities. So doth the Musician, in tunes, 
tell you which by Nature agree, which not. The 
natural Philosopher thereon hath his name, and 
the moral Philosopher standeth upon the natural 
virtues, vices, or passions of man ; and follow 
nature, saith he, therein, and thou shalt not err. 
The Lawyer saith what men have determined. 
The Historian, what men have done. «The 
Grammarian speaketh only of the rules of 
speech; and the Rhetorician and Logician, con- 
sidering what in nature will soonest prove and 
persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which still 
are compassed within the circle of a question, 
according to the proposed matter. The Physi- 
cian weigheth the nature of man's body, and the 
nature of things helpful or hurtful unto it. And 
the Metaphysicke, though it be in the second 
and abstract motions, and therefore be accounted 
supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the 
depth of Nature." 

He follows these accurate distinctions of the 
material world with an enthusiastic picture of the 
ideal realm whose golden gates the poet only 
may unbar. 

" Only the Poet, disdaining to be tied to any 



212 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his 
own invention, doth grow in effect into another 
nature ; in making things either better than na- 
ture bringeth forth, or quite a new form, of such 
as never were nature ; as the Heroes, Demi-gods, 
Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies, and the Hke ; so as 
he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed 
within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely- 
ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. Na- 
ture never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry, 
as divers Poets have done, neither with so pleas- 
ant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, 
nor whatsoever else may make the too much 
loved earth more lovely ; her world is brazen, the 
Poets only deliver a golden." 

He then enumerates with great clearness the 
various kinds of poets, the religious, the philo- 
sophical, and those that "justly may be called 
Vates, who range only into the divine considera- 
tion, and what may be, and should be." " It is 
not rhyming and versing," he adds, " that make 
a Poet, (no more than a long gown maketh an 
advocate, who, though he pleaded in armor 
should be an advocate and no soldier,) but is 
that joining notable images of virtues, vices, or 
what else, with that delightful teaching, which 
must be the right describing note to know a 
Poet by." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 213 

" The end of all earthly learning being 

virtuous action, those skills that most serve to 
bring forth that, have a most just title to be 
princes over the rest; wherein we easily can 
show, the Poet is worthy to have it before any 
other competitors. Among whom principally to 
challenge, step forth the Moral Philosophers ; 
whom methinks I see coming towards me with 
a sullen gravity, (as they could not abide vice 
by daylight,) rudely clothed, for to witness out- 
wardly their contempt of outward things, with 
books in their hands against glory, whereto they 
set their name ; sophistically speaking against 
subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they 
see the foul fault of anger. These men, casting 
largess as they go of definitions, divisions, and 
distinctions, with a scornful interrogative do 
soberly ask, whether it be possible to find any 
path so ready to lead a man to virtue as that 
which teacheth what virtue is." " The His- 
torian scarcely gives leisure to the Moralist to 
say so much, but that he, loaden with old mouse- 
eaten records, authorizing himself for the most 
part upon other histories, whose greatest author- 
ities are built upon the notable foundation of 
Hear-say, having much ado to accord differing 
writers, and to pick truth out of partiality ; better 
acquainted with a thousand years ago than witb 



214 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the present age, and yet better knowing how this 
world goes, than how his own wit runs ; curious 
for antiquities, and inquisitive of novelties, a 
wonder to young folks, and a tyrant in table- 
talk ; — denieth, in a great chafe, that any man 
for teaching of virtue is comparable with him." 

" The Philosopher, setting down with thorny 

arguments the bare rule, is so hard of utterance, 
and so misty to be conceived, that one who hath 
no other guide but him, shall wade in him till he 
be old, before he shall find sufficient cause to be 
honest. For his knowledge standeth so upon the 
abstract and general, that happy is that man who 
may understand him, and more happy that can 
apply what he doth understand. On the other 
side, the Historian, wanting the precept, is so 
tied, not to what should be, but to what is, to 
the particular truth of things, and not to the 
general reason of things, that his example 
draweth no necessary consequence, and there- 
fore a less fruitful doctrine. Now doth the 
peerless Poet perform both ; for whatsoever 
the Philosopher saith should be done, he gives 
a perfect picture of it by some one, by whom 
he presupposeth it was done, so as he couples 
the general notion with the particular ex- 
ample." 

" Tully taketh much pains, and many times 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 215 

not without poetical helps, to make us know the 
force love of our country hath in us. Let us 
but hear old Anchises speaking in the midst of 
Troy's flames, or see Ulysses in the fulness of 
all Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from 
barren and beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics 
said, was a short madness ; let but Sophocles 
bring you Ajax on a stage, killing or whipping 
sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of 
Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and 
Menelaus; and tell me if you have not a more 
familiar insight into anger, than finding in the 
schoolmen its genus and difference." 

" Now therein of all sciences is our Poet the 
Monarch. For he doth not only shew the way, 
but giveth so sweet a prospect, as will entice any 
man to enter into it ; Nay, he doth as if your 
journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the 
very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full 
of that taste, you may long to pass further. He 
beginneth not with obscure definitions, which 
must blur the margin with interpretations, and 
load the memory with doubtfulness ; but he 
cometh to you with words set in delightful pro- 
portion, either accompanied with, or prepared 
for, the well-enchanting skill of music, and with 
a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale 
which holdeth children from play, and old men 



216 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

from the chimney corner;* and pretending no 
more, doth intend the winning of the mind from 
wickedness to virtue ; even as the child is often 
brought to take most wholesome things by hid- 
ing them in such other as have a pleasant taste." 

" By these examples and reasons, I think it 
may be manifest, that the Poet, with that same 
hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effec- 
tually than any other Art doth. And so a con- 
clusion not unfitly ensues ; that as virtue is the 
most excellent resting-place for all worldly learn- 
ing to make its end of, so Poetry being the most 
familiar to teach it, and most princely to move 
towards it, in the most excellent work, is the 
most excellent workman." 

Here he presents at length the relative value 
and beauty of the various forms of poetry ; — the 
pastoral, the elegiac, the comic, the tragic, the 
lyric, — and enthusiastically dilates upon the union 
of metre with music : — 

" I never heard the old song of Percie and 
Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more 
than with a trumpet ; and yet it is sung by some 
blind crowd er, with no rougher voice, than rude 

* This is supposed to be the origin of Shakspeare's — 
" That elder ears played truant at his tale, 
And younger hearings were quite ravished, — 
So sweet and voluble was his discourse," &c. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 217 

style ; which being so evil apparelled in the dust 
and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it 
work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of 
Pindar ? In Hungary, I have seen in the manner 
of all feasts, and other such like meetings, to 
have songs of their ancestors' valor, which that 
soldier-like nation think one of the chiefest kin- 
dlers of courage. The incomparable Lacedemo- 
nians did not only carry that kind of Music ever 
with them to the field ; but even at home, as 
such songs were made, so were they all content 
to be singers of them ; when the lusty men were 
to tell what they did, the old men, what they 
have done, the young men, what they would 
do." 

" Since then," he sums up the argument, 
" Poetry is of all human learning the most an- 
cient, and of most fatherly antiquity ; — since it 
is so universal that no learned nation doth de- 
spise it, nor barbarous nation is without it ; since 
both Roman and Greek gave such divine names 
unto it, the one of prophesying, the other of 
making; and that indeed the name of making 
is fit for him, considering that where all other 
Arts retain themselves within their subject, and 
receive, as it were, their being from it, the 
Poet only bringeth his own stuff, and doth not 
learn a Conceit out of a matter, but maketh 



218 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

matter for a Conceit. Since neither his descrip- 
tion nor end containeth any evil, the thing de- 
scribed cannot be evil, since his effects be so 
good as to teach goodness, and delight the 
learners of it ; since therefore, (namely, in moral 
doctrine, the chief of all knowledges,) he doth 
not only far surpass the Historian, but for in- 
structing is wellnigh comparable to the Philos- 
opher ; since the holy Scripture hath whole parts 
in it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ 
vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; since all his 
kindnesses are not only in their united forms, but 
in their several directions fully commendable, I 
think, (and think I think rightly,) the Laurel 
Crown appointed for triumphant Captains, doth 
worthily, of all other learnings, honor the Poet's 
triumph." 

He proceeds to canvass the objections against 
poetry; just the objections of the stoics of old 
and the utilitarians of to-day ; of men who would 
measure the soul by the limited compass of rea- 
son, and reduce life to a practical demonstration ; 
who would stifle the yearnings of love, strangle 
the generous impulse, and dissipate the heaven- 
bom phantoms of beauty and of taste. We will 
not follow Sir Philip Sidney's argument, because, 
as we have before stated, it has had so many ad- 
mirers, and so many plagiarists, that under other 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 219 

guises its face is universally familiar. It is enough 
to say that its accuracy of reasoning and sus- 
tained dignity of thought are richly adorned with 
the flowers of fancy, and with classical illustra- 
tion, while, in the enthusiasm which pervades the 
whole " Defence," we see that he wrote in obedi- 
ence to what he tells us was the mandate of his 
Muse, " Look in thy heart, and write." 

He especially regrets that poetry has fallen 
from its high esteem in England; and gives, as 
the cause, that " base men with servile wits un- 
dertake it, who think it enough if they be re- 
warded of the printers/and so, as Epaminondas is 
said with the honor of his virtue to have made 
an office by his exercising it, which before was 
contemptible, to become highly respected ; t&T 
these men no more but setting their names to it, 
by their own disgracefulness, disgrace the most 
graceful Poesie^— "As the fertilest ground must 
be manured," he says again, " so must the highest 
plying wit have a Daedalus to guide him." 

He winds up this " hymn of intellectual beauty," 
as it has been well pronounced, by the following 
eloquent peroration : — 

" So that since the ever praiseworthy Poesie is 
full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void 
of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of 
learning, since the blames laid against it are 



220 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

either false or feeble, since the cause why it is not 
esteemed in England is the fault of Poet apes, 
not Poets ; since lastly our tongue is most fit to 
honor Poesie, and to be honored by Poesie, I 
conjure you all that have had the ill luck to read 
this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name 
of the nine Muses, no more to scorn the sacred 
mysteries of Poesie ; no more to laugh at the 
name of Poets, as though they were next inheritor 
to fools ; no more to jest at the reverent title of a 
rhymer, but to believe with Aristotle that they 
were the ancient treasurers of the Grecian divini- 
ty ; to believe with Bembus that they were first 
bringers in of all civility ; to believe with Scali- 
ger that not philosopher's precepts can sooner 
make you an honest man, than the reading of 
Virgil; to believe with Clauserus, the translator 
of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly deity by 
Homer and Hesiod, under the veil of fables to 
give us all knowledge, Logic, Rhetoric, Philoso- 
phy, natural and moral, and Quid non ? To be- 
lieve with me that there are many mysteries 
contained in Poetry, which of purpose were 
written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be 
abused ; to believe with Landin that they are so 
beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they write, 
proceeds out of a divine fury. Lastly' to believe 
themselves when they tell you they will make 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 221 

you immortal by their verse. Thus doing, your 
names shall flourish in the printer's shops ; thus 
doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical 
preface ; thus doing, you shall be most fair, most 
rich, most wise, most all ; you shall dwell upon 
superlatives ; thus doing, though you be Libertino 
patre natus, you shall suddenly grow Herculea 
proles, si quid mea carmina possunt. Thus 
doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's 
Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchises. But if (fie of such 
a But) you be born so near the dull-making 
cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the 
planet-like music of Poetry ; if you have so 
earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up 
to look to the skies of Poetry ; then, though I 
will not wish unto you the asses' ears of Midas, 
nor to be driven by a Poet's verses as Bubonax 
was to hang himself, nor to be rhymed to death, 
as is said to be done in Ireland, yet thus much 
curse I must send you in the behalf of all Poets, 
that while you live you live in love, and never 
get favor, for lacking skill of a sonnet ; and when 
you die, your memory die from the earth for want 
of an epitaph." 

" In this luminous criticism and effusion of 
poetic feeling," remarks D'Israeli, " Sidney has 
introduced the principal precepts of Aristotle, 
touched by the fire and sentiment of Longinus ; 



222 THE LIFE A ND TIMES OF 

and for the first time in English literature, has 
exhibited the beatitude of criticism in a poet- 
critic."* 

In concert with his sister, Sir Philip wrote a 
Paraphrase of the Psalms of David. The last 
work that occupied his pen was a translation of 
an Essay by Du Plessis on the Truth of Chris- 
tianity. It was incomplete at the time of his 
death. 

In the year 1581, the Earl of Leicester made 
himself very obnoxious to the Papists by his ac- 
tive measures in the discovery and suppression of 
several conspiracies projected by them against the 
Queen. His violent denunciations were responded 
to by an invective from a Jesuit, named Green, 
consisting of a circumstantial detail of all the 
crimes which had ever been laid to his charge, 
intermingled with political reflections upon the 
connection between his iniquities and the Popish 
dissatisfaction with the government. This pub- 
lication was circulated throughout Europe and 
read in England with the greatest avidity ; the 
efforts made by the Queen for the suppression of 
statements so prejudicial to her favorite, only in- 
creasing its notoriety. 

Sir Philip Sidney, with all the pride of affec- 
tion and of zeal for the family honour, attempted 
* Amenities of Literature, vol. ii. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 223 

to refute these charges in a letter, which, though 
ingenious, was by no means conclusive in his 
uncle's favor, and was marked rather by warmth 
than by judgment. He probably failed to satisfy 
himself, as his work was unpublished until its 
appearance many years after in the Sidney 
Papers.* 

* Lodge's Illustrious Personages. 




224 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER IX. 

fN presenting to our readers a few selections 
from the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, it is 
needless to suggest that they must not be 
judged by the standard of modern cultivation. 
His talents and his virtues would have shown 
brightly even in this resplendent century; for such 
talents are always rare, and such virtues are of 
all time : but their manifestation must be viewed 
through the focal distance of three hundred years, 
and amid the crude taste and quaint accompani- 
ments which we have endeavored to portray. 
Therefore we bespeak from those who for Sid- 
ney's sake have followed us thus far, and who 
like Bacon are " glad to light " their " torch at 
any man's candle," a just appreciation of the 
dainty hyperboles, the feeling and the pathos that 
sparkle like crystals through the rough metre and 
obsolete iteration. "We have hitherto gathered 
the scattered fragments of Sir Philip's outer and 
worldly life. We have aimed to sketch him as a 
dutiful son, a loving brother, a true friend ; as a 



SIK PHILIP SIDNEY. 225 

patriot, a scholar, and an accomplished cavalier. 
We have shown the dazzling versatility of the 
genius with which courts were delighted, and fair 
women charmed ; which statesmen applauded, 
and critics could not condemn. 

" Beloved over all, 
In whom it seems that gentleness of spright 
And manners mild were planted natural ; 
To which he, adding comely guise withal, 
And gracious speech, did steal men's hearts away." * 

But we have not unveiled the golden affections 
that were enshrined far beneath the surface, sacred 
from the storms, unmoved by the tides of material 
elements. Every life has its hidden romance, 
every soul worships, ofttimes unconsciously, its 
shadowy ideal of human loveliness. The romance 
of Sidney's heart is revealed in the sonnets, which, 
under the nom de plume of "Astrophel," he ad- 
dressed to " Stella." Her real name was Penelope 
Devereux ; she was the daughter of Walter, 
Earl of Devereux, and the sister of that Earl of 
Essex, to whom both the love and the anger of 
the Queen seemed equally fatal. 

Sidney had known this lady from her childhood, 

and soon after his return from his travels, a union 

was proposed between them, and some of their 

* Faerie Queen. 
15 



226 THE LIFE AND TIMES OP 

friends were very anxious for its accomplishment. 
Sir Edward Waterhouse wrote to Sir Henry- 
Sidney : "All the lords that wish well to the chil- 
dren of the Earl of Essex, and I suppose all the 
best sorte of the English lords besides, doe expect 
what will become of the treaty between Mr. 
Phillip and my Lady Penelope. Truly, I must 
say, as I have said to my Lord of Leicester and 
Mr. Phillip, the breaking off from this match, if 
the default be on your parts, will turn to more 
dishonor than can be repaired with any other 
marriage in England." * 

The Egeria of his youth, whom he made 

" Famous by his pen, 
And glorious by his sword," 

was a leading star in the world of rank and fash- 
ion, and is described as a woman of almost fault- 
less beauty, of graceful, yet commanding figure, 
light brown hair, a clear, vivid complexion, and 
lustrous, dark eyes. He alludes to those beguil- 
ing eyes in describing a tilting match, in which he 
attributes his success to their encouraging glances : 

" Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance 
Guided so well, that I obtained the prize, 
Both by the judgment of the English eyes, 
And of some sent from that sweet enemy, France ; 

* Collin's Sidney Papers. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 227 

Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance ; 
Town-folks, my strength ; a daintier Judge applies 
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth use ; 
Some lucky wits impute it but a chance ; 

Others, because of both sides I doe take 
My blood from them who did excel in this, 
Think nature me a man of arms did make. 

How far they shot awry ! the true cause is 
Stella looked on, and from her heavenly face 
Sent forth the beams, which made so fair my race." 

He often alludes to the expression of modesty 
and delicate reserve, which lent to those sweet 
eyes an added fascination : — 

" O eyes which doe the spheares of beauty move, 
Whose beames be joyes, whose joyes all vertues be ; 
Who, while they make Love conquer, conquer Love, 
The schools where Venus might learn chastity." 

And again : — 

" Soules joy, bend not those morning starres from me, 
Where vertue is made strong by beautie's might, 
Where love is chastnesse, paine dothe learne delight, 
And humbleness growes one with Majestic 

Whatever may ensue, O let mee be 
Copartner of the riches of that sight ; 
Let not mine eyes be driven from that light ; 
O looke ! O shine ! O let me die and see ! " 



228 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The incense of his homage is offered less to 
her surpassing loveliness of person, than to the 
moral purity which it enshrined. 

" Who will in fairest book of nature know 
How vertue may best lodged in beautie be, 
Let him but learne of Love to read in thee, 
Stella, those faire lines, which true goodness show. 

There shall we find all vices overthrow, 
Not by rude force, but sweetest soveraigntie 
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fiye ; 
That inward sunne in thine eyes shineth so. 

And not content to be Perfection's heire 
Thyselfe, dost strive all mindes that way to move, 
Who marke in thee what is in thee most faire. 
So while thy beauty drawes the heart to love, 
As fast thy vertue bends that love to good." 

Every one remembers Charles Lamb's beauti- 
ful Essay upon Sidney's sonnets, in which he 
says : " We must be lovers, — or at least the cooling 
touch of time, the circum prcecordia frigus, must 
not have so damped our faculties as to take away 
our recollection that we were once so, — before we 
can duly appreciate the glorious vanities and 
graceful hyperboles of the passion." Here again 
our poet's numbers breathe the romance of true 
devotion, tinctured, perhaps, with the melancholy 
always attendant on acute feeling : — 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 229 

" Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame, 
Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee ; 
Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history ! 
If thou praise not, all other praise is shame 

Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame 
A nest for my young praise in Lawrell-tree ; 
In truth I sweare, I wish not there should be 
Grav'd in mine epitaph a Poet's name. 

Ne if I would, I could just title make, 
That any laud to me thereof should grow, 
Without my plumes from other wings I take. 
For nothing from my wit or will doth flow, 
Since all my words thy beauty doth indite, 
And love doth hold my hand and makes me write." 

It is not probable that Stella returned in equal 
measure this single-hearted constancy of her lover. 
She seems at one time to have divided the light 
and shadow of her countenance between himself 
and the accomplished Sir Charles Blount, after- 
ward Lord Mountjoy. It must have been while 
grieving from such an eclipse of her favor that 
he wrote the following apostrophe, which is cer- 
tainly a gem of poetic conception and melan- 
choly pathos. The London Retrospective Re- 
view, a high authority in criticism, says that if 
Sidney had written nothing but this, he would 
still deserve to rank among the poets of his 
country : — 



230 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

" With how sad steps, O moone, thou climbst the skies, 
How silently, and with how wan a face ? 
What, may it be that even in heavenly place 
That busie archer his sharp arrows tries ? 

" Sure if that long with Love acquainted eyes 
Can judge of Love, thou feel'st a Lover's case, 
I read it in thy looks, thy languisht grace, 
To me that feele the like, thy state descries. 

" Then ev'n of fellowship, O moone, tell me 
Is constant Love deem'd there but want of wit ? 
Are beauties there as proud as here they be ? 
Doe they above love to be lov'd, and yet 
Those lovers scorne whom that Love doth possesse ? 
Doe they call Vertue there ungratefulnesse ? " 



He frequently alludes to the pensive wander- 
ings of his thoughts to their own sweet secret, 
and complains of the curious crowd that eye him 
with malicious surmise or unsympathizing sneer : 



Because I oft in dark abstracted guise, 
Seem most alone in greatest company ; 
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry, 
To them that would make speech of speech arise ; 

They deeme, and of their doome the rumour flies, 
That poison foule of bubbling pride doth lye 
So in my swelling breast, that onely I 
Fawne on my selfe, and others doe despise ; 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 231 

" Yet pride I thinke dotli not my soule possesse, 
Which lookes too oft in his unflattering glasse, 
But one worse fault Ambition I confesse, 
That makes me oft my best friends overpasse, 
Unseene, unheard, while thought to highest place 
Bends all his poivers, even unto Stella's grace." 

" The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness 
Bewray itself in my long settled eyes, 
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, 
With idle paines, and missing ayme, doe ghesse. 

" Some that know how my spring I did addresse, 
Deeme that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies ; 
Others, because the Prince my service tryes, 
Thinke that I thinke State errours to redresse. 

" But harder judges judge Ambition's rage, 
Scourge of itselfe, still climbing slippery place, 
Holds my young braine captiv'd in golden cage. 

" O fooles, or over-wise, alas, the race 
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, 
But onely Stella's eyes, and Stella's heart." 

On one occasion, ne gracefully compliments the 
delicate beauty of complexion which permitted 
his fair one to dispense with the usual feminine 
protections against sunshine and air : 

" In highest way of heav'n the Sun did ride, 
Progressing then from faire twins' golden place : 



232 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Having no scarfe of clouds before his face, 
But sliining forth of heat in his chiefe pride ; 

" When some faire Ladies by hard promise ty'd, 
On horsebacke met him in his furious race, 
Yet each prepar'd with fannes' well shading grace. 
From that foe's wounds their tender skins to hide ; 

" Stella alone, with face unarmed marcht, 
Either to doe like him which open shone, 
Or careless of the wealth because her owne ; 

" Yet were the hid and meaner beauties parent, 
Her daintiest, bare went free ; the cause was this, 
The Sun which others burn'd, did her but kisse." 

Every one must sympathize with the petulant 
fondness of his address to a friend who had lately 
left her presence, but whose answers to his anx- 
ious inquiries of her welfare were tantalizingly 
vague and unsatisfactory : — 

" Be your words made (good Sir) of Indian ware, 
That you allow me them by so small rate ? 
Or doe you curted Spartans imitate ? 
Or doe you mean my tender eares to spare, 

" That to my questions you so totall are ? 
When I demand of Phoenix, Stella's state, 
You say (forsooth) you left her well of late : 
O God, thinke you that satisfies my care ? 

" I would know whether she sit or walke, 
How cloath'd, how waited on, sighed she or smil'd, 
Whereof, with whom, how often did she talke ? 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 933 

" With what pastime time's journey she beguil'd ? 
If her lips daigti'd to sweeten my poore name ? 
Say all, and all well said, still say the same" 

May not Shakspeare, who evidently read and 
admired the Arcadia, have borrowed hence a hint 
for the queries of his Cleopatra ? 

" Oh Charmian, 

" Where think'st thou he is now ? Stands he or sits he ? 
Or does he walk '? Or is he on his horse ? 
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony ! " 

At length, the caprice that tempers the loveli- 
ness of Stella seems to resolve itself into a return 
of his own devotion, and he thus pours forth the 
joyous carol of his renovated hope : — 

" O joy, too high for my low stile to show ; 
O blisse, fit for a nobler state than me ! 
Envie, put out thine eyes lest thou doe see 
What oceans of delight in me doe flow. 

" My friend, that oft saw through all maskes my woe, 
Come, come, and let me poure my selfe on thee ; 
Gone is the winter of my miserie, 
My Spring appeares, O see what here doth grow. 

" For Stella hath with words where faith doth shine, 
Of her high heart giv'n me the Monarchy : 
I, I, O I may say that she is mine. 

" And though she give but thus conditionally 
This realme of blisse, while vertue's course I take, 
No Kings be crown'd, but they some covenants make/' 



234 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The following sprightly little song was, per- 
haps, written under the same inspiration : — 

" O faire, O sweet, when I doe looke on thee, 
In whom all joyes so well agree, 
Heart and soule doe dwell in me ; 
This you heare is not my tongue, 
Which once said what I conceived, 
For it was of use bereaved, 
With a cruel answer strong. 
No, though tongue to roofe be cleaved, 
Fearing lest he chastised be, 
Heart and soule doe sing in me. 

" O faire, O sweet, when I doe looke on thee, 
In whom all joyes so well agree ; 
Just accord all musicke makes ; 
In thee just accord excelleth, 
Where each part in such peace dwelleth, 
One of other beautie takes. 
Since then truth to all mindes telleth, 
That in thee lives harmony, 
Heart and soule doe sing in me. 

" O faire, O sweete, when I doe looke on thee, 
In whom all joyes so well agree ; 
They that heav'n have knowne, doe say 
That whoso that grace obtaineth, 
To see what faire sight there ralgneth, 
Forced are to sing alway ; 
So then since that heav'n remaineth, 
In thy face I plainly see, 
Heart and soule doe sino- in me." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 235 

It is difficult to account for Stella's final ac- 
ceptance of the title and estates of Lord Rich — a 
man of uncouth appearance, unpleasant address, 
and always the object of her avowed aversion. 
The only plausible solution is that of a merce- 
nary disposition on the part of her guardians, for 
Lord Rich was affluent, and Sidney was without 
expectations from his father, and merely the heir 
in reversion of his uncle Leicester. Only those 
whose hearts have been scorched and seared with 
the anguish of blighted hopes, whose wine of 
life has been turned to gall and bitterness, can 
sympathize with his sorrow when the object of 
his devotion was suddenly wrested from his 
possession. He could not cease to love ; but 
that, after her marriage, his love was transformed 
into a loyal friendship, we have every reason to 
believe. His own character is the best guarantee 
that, as he sometimes said, " in a brave bosom, 
honor cannot be rocked asleep by affection ; " and 
since not detraction itself could presume in his 
day, and in the very face of his constant and 
public homage, to asperse his knightly name, it 
is meet that we, too, should rightly comprehend 
the nature of his devotion. 

Her own impatience at the trammels thus 
forced upon her, and the deep tenderness, mingled 
with delicate reserve, with which she continued 



236 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to regard him, are feelingly pictured in several of 
his poems. It is almost needless to say, that they 
were not intended by him for publication, but 
were written merely to mitigate the fever, or to 
solace the sadness, of some solitary hour. 

That he learned the lesson for which we are 
told love was given — the lesson which life in its 
vanities, its griefs, and even in its gladness, per- 
petually repeats — 

" by mortal yearning to ascend 
Toward a higher object — " 

we do not need assurance, even from the beauti- 
ful effusion with which we close these extracts : 

" Leave me, O Love, which readiest but to dust, 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust ; 
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. 

Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might, 
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedomes be ; 
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light, 
That doth both shine, and give us sight to see. 

O take fast hold, let that light be thy guide, 

In this small course which birth drawes out to death ; 

And thinke how ill becometh him to slide, 

Who seeketh heav'n, and comes of heav'nly breath. 

Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see, 

Eternal Love, maintaine thy life in me." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 237 

It is sad to trace the history of the peerless 
beauty, whose name is imperishable, because 
linked with that of her poet. We cannot forgive 
her for her coquetry with Lord Mountjoy, while 
honored with the love of such a man as Sidney ; 
but her conduct after the death of the latter, was 
so utterly devoid of principle, as to prove that 
she could never have been entitled to homage so 
reverent and confiding. Her subsequent life was 
a tissue of misery and misfortune. While her 
brother, of whom she was proudly fond, was a 
prisoner in the Tower, and there yet seemed hope 
that the Queen might forgive his offences for the 
sake of the offender, Lady Rich labored unceas- 
ingly for his pardon ; besieging her Majesty with 
tearful appeals and written petitions, until re- 
fused further audience. After his execution, she 
was almost heart-broken, and entirely reckless of 
public opinion. She married Lord Mountjoy in 
1605, after obtaining a divorce from Lord Rich 
for that purpose, but the scandal that preceded 
and attended the alliance, was so open and 
severe, as to produce the most unhappy effects 
upon both parties. The marriage of a divorced 
wife during the lifetime of her husband, was con- 
sidered at that time, in England, an outrageous 
breach of decorum. Archbishop Laud, who per- 
formed the ceremony, ever after observed its 



238 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

anniversary as a day of fasting and prayer. 
Mountjoy, a high-spirited and distinguished man, 
was unable to endure the infamy of a blot upon 
his 'scutcheon, and died a year after ; and Stella 
ended her life, a few months later, in solitude and 
grief. 

In 1583, Sir Philip married the only daughter 
of Sir Francis Walsingham, upon whose "beauty 
met with virtue," Ben Jon son glowingly dilates. 
Although Spenser averred, that Stella was the 
only woman whom Sidney really loved, it may 
be inferred from some of his poems, addressed 
to his wife, that he regarded her with affection 
and esteem. 

It seems, by a letter from Walsingham to 
Hatton, dated March 19th, 1582, that the Queen, 
true to her usual antipathy to " domestic bliss," 
was displeased with Sidney's pending marriage. 
The secretary says, he u had well hoped that his 
paynfull and faithfulle service done unto her 
Majestie, would have secured her good lyking 
thereof," and he begs Hatton to let her know 
that " the matche is held for concluded, and how 
just cause he will have to find himself aggrieved 
if her Majestie still showe her mislike thereof." * 

* Wright's Elizabeth. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 239 



CHAPTER X. 

/qfcTWT)]3> of this nineteenth century, when 
Yl- IP U science and enterprise have laid bare 
^^Sw the remotest nooks of our terrestrial 
home, even to the ice-bound secrets of hyperbo- 
rean zones, can hardly fancy the golden mystery 
which, in 1585, still enshrouded the Western 
Continent. There yet lived in England a few 
venerable men who could talk of the incredulity 
with which, in their boyhood, people listened to 
the story of the Genoese adventurer, whose chi- 
merical wanderings had led him to an immense 
and unexplored land, teeming with wealth, and 
beautiful as Paradise itself. They well remem- 
bered, too, the dark forebodings of the aged, the 
enthusiastic cheers of the young, that rang in the 
ears of John and Sebastian Cabot, when Henry 
VII. granted them leave to sail with their own 
little fleet in search of distant and unknown 
lands ; and the same " old men eloquent " told of 
the wonder and applause which greeted the dar- 
ing mariners, when they returned with the map 



240 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

of the coast from Labrador to Albermarle Sound, 
and vested in England the primal right to the 
Continent of North America. 

From that time onward, the eager eyes of 
Europe all turned toward the enchanted West. 
The fisheries of Newfoundland brought wealth 
and commerce to the English and the French. 
The freebooters of Spain wrung from the gentle 
Mexicans their accumulated treasures. The Dutch 
merchants planted their colonies among the man- 
grove trees and the gorgeous birds of Surinam. 
The flag of the fleur de lys announced French 
possession of the stately forests of Guiana. 
The standard of Portugal was raised amid the 
pines and tamarinds of Brazil. Ponce de Leon 
sought the fountain of perpetual youth among 
the mulberry groves of Florida. De Soto and 
his brave comrades, breaking through the soli- 
tudes watered by the Ogeechee and the Altamaha, 
plucked the purple grapes from the banks of the 
Alabama, and gazed in silent wonder upon the 
magnificent Mississippi. The wildest fables re- 
garding the new world gained universal credence. 
Its rivers were said to sparkle with sands of gold ; 
its inhabitants to deck themselves with inestima- 
ble gems, of whose value they knew nothing; the 
dreams of alchemy were there fulfilled, without 
the aid of crucible and fire ; the Elysian fields 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 241 

were not more redolent of fragrance, or prolific 
in beauty, in every form of fruit and flower. 
No nation listened with more credulous delight 
than did the English. At the time of which we 
write, Frobisher, that model of patient seamen, 
had recently returned from the last of his three 
voyages to Labrador and Greenland, bringing 
each time, however, no richer reward than one or 
two specimen savages, and heaps of black earth, 
supposed to contain the precious metal.* Weather- 



* Sidney's interest in these enterprises is indicated in a 
letter to Languet, dated October 1,1577: . . . "I wrote 
you a year ago about a certain Frobisher, who, in rivalry of 
Magellan has explored that sea he supposes to wash the north 
part of America. It is a marvellous history. After having 
made slow progress in the past year, he touched at a certain 
island for the purpose of recruiting himself and his crew. 
Here, by chance, a young man, one of the ship's company, 
picked up a piece of earth which he saw glittering on the 
ground, and showed it to Frobisher, who being engaged in 
other matters, and not believing that the precious metals 
were produced in a region so far to the north, considered it 
of no value. . . The young man kept the earth by him as 
a memorial of his labour, (for he had no thought of any thing 
else,) till his return to London. And there, when one of his 
friends perceived it shining in an extraordinary manner, he 
made an assay, and found that it was the purest gold, and 
without any other intermixture of other metal. Wherefore 
Frobisher went back to the place, last spring, under orders to 
16 



242 THE LIFE A ^ T I> TIMES OF 

beaten tars held forth to gaping crowds in the 
little alehouses of Falmouth and of Deptford, 
upon the hazardous excitements of polar naviga- 
tion, of hidden rocks, unknown currents, rushing 

explore that island ; and, should it answer his expectation, to 
proceed no farther. This he has done, and has now returned, 
bringing his ships, of which he had only three, and those of 
small size, full laden ; and he is said (for they have not yet 
unloaded) to have brought two hundred tons of ore. He has 
given it as his decided opinion, that the island is so productive 
in metals as to seem very far to surpass the country of Peru. 
There are also six other islands near to this, which seem very 
little inferior. It is therefore at this time under debate by 
what means these, our hitherto successful labors, can be still 
carried on in safety against the attacks of other nations, 
among whom the Spaniards and Danes seem especially to be 
considered : the former, as claiming all the western parts by 
right from the Pope ; the latter, as, being more northerly and 
nearer, and relying on their possession of Iceland, they are 
better provided with the means of undertaking this voyage. 
I wish you would send me your opinion on this subject, and 
at the same time describe the most convenient method of 
working those ores." 

Languet, in his reply, commends the enterprise of Frobish- 
er, but says that he has noticed in Sidney an eagerness for 
adventure, and he warningly adds : " Do not let the cursed hun- 
ger after gold creep into that spirit of yours, into winch 
nothing has been admitted but the love of goodness and the 
desire of earning the good- will of all men." 

Five months after his first notice of the subject, Sidney 
Frobisher's sold is now melted and does not 



SIK PHILIP SIDNEY. 243 

waterfalls, and moving mountains of ice. Raleigh's 
colony, under the gallant Sir Richard Grenville, 
had just landed on the sunny isles of Roanoke, 
and sent back glowing descriptions of " the good- 
liest land under the cope of heaven." Francis 
Drake had immortalized his name by the circum- 
navigation of the globe ; and though the achieve- 
ment was tarnished by his extensive piracies 
among the Spanish possessions in the harbors of 
the Pacific, the Queen had given him her sanction 
and encouragement. It may be said in his de- 
fence, that Spain was in avowed antagonism to 
England. A band of troops, and large sums of 
money, had been sent in 1582 to Ireland, to stir 
up its inhabitants to further rebellion, in revenge 
of the Queen's assistance to the Netherlands ; 
and the ships of both countries, traversing the 
high seas for commerce or adventure, delighted 
to express their national animosity by individual 
reprisal. 

The youth of England were fired with emula- 

turn out so valuable as he at first boasted ; however, these 
islands at 62° are not to be despised ; but they keep this as a 
great secret, lest, as you know, the opportunity be forestalled. 
Nay, more, they expect to be able to cross the sea at the same 
latitude ; so incorrect is the description of the world as given 
by cosmographers ; but if there should be open sea at such a 
temperature, you perceive it will be of great importance." 



244 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

tion of enterprise and of wealth, and filled with 
longings to behold the Eden of the West. Ava- 
rice might there slake its fiercest thirst ; Romance 
realize its wildest dreams; Ambition revel in 
territorial conquest and colonial freedom. It is 
not surprising that Philip Sidney, with his poetic 
fancy, his generous impulse, his craving for 
heroic action, looked with impatient eye from the 
disappointments, the intrigues, and the restrictions 
of a court life, towards the land which mystery 
and distance gilded with twofold charm. lie 
once wrote despondingly to Languet, in regard to 
the state of Protestant affairs in the Netherlands : 
" I seem to see our cause withering away, and 
am now meditating with myself some Indian 
project." 

When Drake was fitting out his second expe- 
dition, in the summer of 1585, Sir Philip, in 
accordance with one of his favorite mottoes, 
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam" — 1 will either 
find a way or make one, — engaged to associate 
himself with it, and to equip, from his own purse, 
both a naval and a land armament. Sir Fulke 
Greville, who designed to accompany him, de- 
clares that his friend meditated a check upon the 
dangerous power of Spain, by attacking its West 
India possessions, and that he also projected the 
foundation of a new and extensive empire, which, 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 245 

redeeming the forests from their solitude, and 
blending the strength of civilization with the fertil- 
ity of nature, should offer to the adventurous a 
broad arena, and to the oppressed a sanctuary ; 
and, by its wise and liberal administration, rees- 
tablish the golden reign of peace. 

He says that the scheme was the result of long 
and serious thought, and was "the exactest 
model Europe ever saw; a conquest not to be 
enterprised but by Sir Philip's reaching spirit, 
that grasped all circumstances and interests." 

Sir Fulke was, as we have previously stated, 
Sidney's most intimate friend, and probably 
better acquainted with his purposes than any 
other. We cannot discern, through the dim light 
of Sir Philip's scant memorials, all the motives 
by which he was actuated ; but it is impossible 
to believe that the pure principles which had thus 
far guided his life, were now sacrificed to cupidity 
or ambition. This project, however, though car- 
ried on with great secrecy, was a failure. The 
Queen, hearing of his intended departure, recalled 
" her Philip " by a peremptory message, and gave 
further orders, that if he declined to obey, the 
entire fleet must be detained. A vexatious man- 
date, it must be well imagined, however indicative 
of her partiality ; " yet," says Sir Fulke, " did he 
sit this processe without noise or anger." 



246 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

It is difficult to account for the persis- 
tent refusals of Elizabeth to grant him ad- 
vancement, either in a foreign land, or in her own 
service. Her arbitrary dictum had no other ex- 
planation than that of the fiat of Louis XIV. : 
"Car tel est noire plaisir? But Sidney's fault 
was impetuosity of temper, — a fault almost in- 
separable from youth and a fervid nature, — and 
it may have influenced, in some degree, the 
policy of the cautious queen. 

He certainly possessed her esteem, and was the 
constant subject of her praise. He was one of 
her favored band of gentlemen pensioners, ranked 
by Shakspeare superior to earls, and there is 
casual mention of the gift from her of a living in 
Wales; she had recently admitted him to her 
privy council, and conferred on him the honor of 
knighthood — an honor the more distinguished 
because, during her entire reign, only six earls and 
nine barons were elevated to the peerage, and 
knights were created with great discrimination. 
But a request, preferred by him in 1532, for the 
office of master of the ordinance in connection 
with his uncle, the Earl of Warwick, was refused. 
That, however, may have been from some special 
ill humor on the part of Burleigh, to whom the 
letter was addressed, toward Leicester ; and the 
Queen was probably influenced by him in her de- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 247 

cision, for Sir Philip says : " I learn that her 
majesty yields gratious heering unto the suit." 
He adds that he desires it " much more for the 
being busied in a thing of some serviceable ex- 
perience, than for any other commoditie, which is 
but small, that can arise of it." 

An apochryphal story has gained credence with 
many of the writers of Sir Philip's life, that, in 
1585, it was proposed to nominate him to the 
elective crown of Poland, then left vacant, as 
they assert, by the death of Stephen Battori. 
They tell us that his royal mistress forbade the 
intended honor to her knight, with the declara- 
tion that " her sheep should not be marked with 
a stranger's brand," and that Sir Philip loyally 
replied, he " would rather remain the subject of 
Queen Elizabeth, than accept the highest prefer- 
ment in a foreign land." This incident, if true, 
would doubtless have formed a brilliant episode 
in Sidney's career, but unfortunately for romance, 
it can have little or no foundation in historical 
fact. Fulke Greville, his intimate friend and 
biographer, does not mention it at all. The stan- 
dard historians, Thuanus, De Thou, Lelevel, in his 
Histoire de la Polonie, and most others, agree in 
the assertion that Battori did not die until Decem- 
ber, 1586, which was two months after the death 
of Sidney. The story rests upon the authority 



248 THE LIFE A ND TIMES OF 

of Naunton, whose "Fragmenta Regalia" is 
rather a collection of anecdotes and the gossip 
of the times, than a work of reliable veracity. It 
seems to us by no means improbable, however, 
that some of Sir Philip's numerous friends may 
have suggested the presentation of his name to 
the Electors of Poland, in view of some future 
election, and that the story of his positive nomi- 
nation may have arisen from this shadowy pre- 
sumption. 

While thus, day by day, and year by year, 
Sidney rose to eminence and fame, the unseen 
shadows of death were drawing near ; the drama 
which developed the latest phase of his character 
was in rapid preparation. 

The seven United Provinces had lost their 
pillar of light — "William of Orange was no more. 
After escaping numberless perils from the spy, 
the traitor, and the assassin, he had at last been 
shot by an insane fanatic, and was now sepul- 
chred in the land he had served so purely, so 
zealously, with such untiring self-denial, and 
such consummate wisdom, that his love appears 
less human than divine. The Republic was 
shrouded in gloom ; its prospects were more 
alarming than at any previous time, from the com- 
mencement of the war. A more pathetic em- 
phasis was attached to the emblem stamped 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 949 

upon the coin of the unhappy state — a little ship 
struggling without sails or oars against adverse 
waves, with the motto, " Incertum quo fata 
ferantP * 

The Duke of Anjou, proving recreant to his 
promised defence, had been dismissed; and soon 
after ended, in France, a life made up of follies and 
of failures. Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, 
had conquered nearly the whole of Flanders and 
Brabant, and triumphantly established the Span- 
ish troops in Ghent, Brussels, and Antwerp, 
acquiring a numerous fleet by the reduction of 
the latter city. With the tactics of despair, its 
citizens cut away their dykes, inundating the 
country, and sweeping off his magazines; and 
vainly endeavored to burn the stupendous forti- 
fied bridge which he had built across the wide 
estuary of the Scheldt, for the purpose of pre- 
venting their communication with the sea. The 
city, beautiful and opulent still, despite repeated 
ravages, was subjected to the most flagrant rapa- 
cities. Plunder, fire, massacre, and the flight of 
twenty thousand of its principal inhabitants, 
wrought a destruction so rapid and complete, as 
finds few parallels in history. 

The whole confederacy trembled before the 

* Uncertain whither Fate may bear me. 



250 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

accumulating force of the Duke of Parma. Fail- 
ing in their application for aid from the King of 
France, they again applied to Queen Elizabeth, 
offering her the sovereignty of their realm, and 
entreating her support. She rejected the offer, 
from the same cautious anxiety to avoid the im- 
putation of encroachment on the rights of Philip 
II. that had dictated her refusal of a similar 
petition, a few years before. But, more than ever 
aware that the safety and welfare of her own 
kingdom were closely connected with the inde- 
pendence of her affluent commercial neighbors, 
she now openly espoused their cause. A treaty 
was concluded in June, 1585, which secured to 
them the aid of 6,000 troops, paid by herself 
during the continuance of the war, and the prom- 
ise of naval assistance, if it should be required. 
In pledge of subsequent payment, she was to re- 
ceive the towns of Brille and Flushing, and the 
Fort of Rammekins. She invested Sir Thomas 
Cecil, the eldest son of Lord Burleigh, with the 
command of the strongly fortified island-town of 
Brille ; and feeling, no doubt, that she must 
henceforth give a wider scope to the aspiring 
spirit of Sir Philip Sidney, she appointed him 
Governor of Flushing. This town was con- 
sidered, from its position at the mouth of the 
western Scheldt, one of the most important 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 9-)l 

points in the Netherlands. The last instructions 
of Charles V. to his son, referred to the particular 
care which he should employ for its security. 
After the revolt began, its citizens drove out the 
Spanish garrison, destroyed the new-laid founda- 
tions of their citadel, and with the assistance of 
the Prince of Orange, and his confederates, 
planted themselves in an attitude of resistance, 
which they were still able to maintain. 

Sir Philip assumed the duties of his office on 
the 18th of November. He was welcomed by 
the Dutch with every mark of distinction, and 
immediately appointed Colonel of all their regi- 
ments. He left his wife, Lady Frances Sidney, 
at home, until he could make arrangements for 
her reception there ; because, as he wrote to his 
father-in-law, to whom he gave a power of attor- 
ney over the disposition and care of his property, 
he "might take such a course as would not be 
fitt for anye of the feminin gender." 

The command of the English forces was given 
to the Earl of Leicester, under the title of Gen- 
eral of the Queen's Auxiliaries, and to this was 
added a control over the navy, paramount to that 
of the Lord Admiral himself.* 

* It is a remarkable evidence of the religious sentiment of 
the times, that, among the instructions which Leicester re- 



252 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

He was attended by five hundred of the youth- 
ful nobility ; adventurous spirits, that burned to 
aid the Belgian revolt against the tyranny of 
Philip II. and to win distinction in this famous 
school of martial discipline. Among the number 
was the step-son of Leicester, and brother of Sid- 
ney's Stella, Robert, Earl of Essex ; who, though 
only nineteen, had already appeared at court, and 
been received by the Queen with a favor that 
clearly foreshadowed his predestined position in 
her regard. Even at this early age, he was con- 
spicuous by his imperious, though graceful, de- 
meanor, and by his personal prodigality. 

Leicester was perfectly unfit for this service, 
having neither the courage, the integrity, nor the 
military science, which it required. As usual, 
however, his discriminating mistress was either 
wilfully or unconsciously blind to his defects. 
Her partiality painted him, as her own face upon 
canvas has, by her unartistic decree, descended 
to us — without shadows. But he had practised 
so long and so well the dazzling arts of presence 
and address, that the Provinces were at first de- 
ceived as completely as was the Queen. Land- 
ing at Flushing with his splendid retinue, he was 



ceived, was a special order to require his soldiers " to serve 
God, and demean themselves religiously." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 253 

received by Sir Philip with cordial ceremonial, 
and by the Belgians universally with the festivi- 
ties and pomp appropriate to a conquering prince, 
rather than to the subject of an ally. They fol- 
lowed him with acclamations, and marked his 
way by triumphal arches ; appointed a guard to 
attend him, and conferred on him the offices of 
Governor- General, and Commander-in-Chief of 
the Army and Navy. Doubtless they hoped that 
homage to the favorite would gratify the Queen, 
and secure her deeper interest in their behalf, 
and were both chagrined and alarmed when, with 
characteristic jealousy, she sent over her Vice- 
Chancellor, Sir Thomas Heneage, to express her 
high indignation that such unexampled honors 
should be bestowed upon a subject whom, as she 
said, she " had raised out of the dust." Expla- 
nations and submissions were hastily returned, 
but as Leicester retained his authority, we may 
plausibly infer that she was reluctant to wound 
his vanity or his ambition, by its withdrawal. 

It was not long, however, before the Provinces 
themselves repented of their generosity. The 
incapacity of the new Governor to conduct their 
military affairs, and his arbitrary and unjust in- 
terference in the civil administration, filled them 
with consternation. He laid such restrictions 
upon their trade that many of their merchants 



254 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

removed from the country. He altered the coin, 
levied taxes without their consent, and had the 
moneys delivered, not to their own treasurer, but 
to one of his appointment, who refused to render 
them his accounts. He collected large sums for 
the alleged purpose of paying the troops, who, 
after all, were so ill paid, that it was difficult to 
prevent a mutiny. He ejected their own distin- 
guished citizens from offices of trust, and sup- 
planted them with his own minions, many of 
whom were known as artful and treacherous 
men. In all respects, he treated them more like 
a conquered people whose sovereignty he pur- 
posed to assume, than as a free and allied re- 
public* 

And now we are called to witness the mag- 
nanimous conduct of his admirable nephew ; the 
upright and decisive efforts by which Sir Philip 
labored to remedy the evils of this miserable 
administration. Having been appointed general 
of the English cavalry, he took a very active part 
in the campaign, supplied the soldiers from his 
private purse, and encouraged them by his prom- 
ises and presence ; constantly mediated between 
his uncle and the discontented citizens, and effec- 
tually conciliated Count Hohenlo, who was at 

* Watson's Philip II. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 255 

the head of a rival faction. Leicester himself 
acknowledged, after Sidney's death, that he sus- 
tained his own authority in the Low Countries, 
through his superior merit* 

In a letter to his uncle, dated Feb. 2, 1586, Sir 
Philip remonstrates with him on the ill usage of 
the English soldiers. " It grieves me very much 
the soldiers are so badly dealt with in your first 
beginning of government, not only in their pay, 
but in taking booties from them, as by your 
Excellency's letter I find." In the same letter 
he requests that forces may be sent to besiege 
Steenburg. " I will undertake upon my life 
either to ruin it, or to make the enemy raise his 
siege from Grave, or, which I most hope, both." 
At another time he intimates that " his charges, 
divers ways, and particularly his horsemen, grow 
greater than he is able to go through with ; " but 
protests that " so far from desiring gain, he is 
willing to spend all he can make." 

A letter, addressed by him to Secretary Wal- 
singham, reveals to us his own zeal in the Prot- 
estant cause, and the inadequate provision made 
for her army by the Queen ; presenting, too, in 
a very interesting view, as says one of his biog- 
raphers, " the same Sidney, whose pen had lately 

* Fulke Greville. 



256 THE LTFE AND TIMES OF 

been dedicated to the soft and sweet relaxation 
of poesy and pastoral romance, now writing from 
his tent, amidst the din of war, with the stern 
simplicity and short-breathed impatience of an 
old soldier." We subjoin a few extracts : — 
" Right Honorable, 

" I receave dyvers letters from you, full of 
the discomfort which I see, and am sorry to see, 
y l yow daily meet with at home ; and I think, 
such is y e goodwil it pleaseth you to bear me, y l 
my part of y e trouble is something y l troubles 
yow ; but I beseech yow, let it not. I had before 
cast my count of danger, want, and disgrace ; 
and, before God, Sir, it is trew in my hart, the 
love of y e caws doth so far overballance them all, 
y l , with God's grace, thei shall never make me 
weery of my resolution. If her Ma 1 wear the 
fountain, I wold fear, considering what I daily 
fynd, y l we shold wax dry ; but she is but a 
means whom God useth, and I know not 
whether I am deceaved, but I am faithfully per- 
suaded, y l if she shold w th draw herself, other 
springes wold ryse to help this action: for 
methinkes I see y e great work indeed in hand 
against the abusers of the world, wherein it is 
no greater fault to have confidence in man's 
power, then it is too hastily to despair of God's 
work. I think a wyse and constant man ought 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 257 

never to greeve whyle he doth plaie, as a man 
may sai, his own part truly, though others be 
out ; but if himself leav his hold becaws other 
marriners will be ydle, he will hardly forgive 
himself his own fault. For me, I can not promis 

of my own cource, no, not of the becaws I 

know there is a eyer power y l must uphold me, 
or else I shall fall ; but certainly I trust I shall 
not by other men's wantes be drawne from my- 
self ; therefore, good Sir, to whome for my par- 
ticular I am more bownd then to all men be- 
sydes. be not troubled with my troubles, for I 
have seen the worst, in my judgement, before- 
hand, and wors then y l can not bee." 

" If the Queene pai not her souldiours she 
must loos her garrisons; ther is no dout thereof; 
but no man living shall be hable to sai the fault 
is in me. What releefe I can do them, I will. 
I will spare no danger, if occasion serves. I am 
sure no creature shall be hable to lay injustice 
to my charge ; and, for furdre doutes, truly I 
stand not uppon them. We shall have a sore 
warr upon us this sommer, wherein if appoint- 
ment had been kept, and these disgraces forborn, 
w ch have greatly weakened us, we had been 
victorious. — It hath been a costly beginning unto 
me this war, by reason I had nothing propor- 
tioned unto it ; my servantes unexperienced, and 

17 



258 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

myself every way unfurnished I have been 

vyldli deceaved for armures or horsemen ; if yow 
cold speedily spare me any out of your armury, 
I will send them yow back as soon as my own 
be finished. There was never so good father 
find a more troublesome son." Dated at Utrecht, 
March 24. 

The Belgians fought as men fight for liberty 
and life ; the English, as loyal subjects and earn- 
est allies ; but the contest was unequal, and its 
progress discouraging and slow. The Spaniards 
were better trained, more subtle, and moreover 
inspired by the acute science and cool daring 
of the greatest general of the age. Alexander 
of Parma was the nephew, the rival, and the 
successor of Don John ; possessing his ambition 
without his romance, his bravery, but not his 
fascination ; inferior in the graces that woo and 
win ; superior in military command, and in pa- 
tient, unscrupulous execution. When but six 
years old, he had delightedly witnessed the siege 
of his native city, and its brave defence by his 
father, Ottavio Farnese. At eleven, he plead 
with tears for permission to serve as a volunteer 
at the battle of St Quentin. In early manhood, 
in default of the excitements of war, he nightly 
perambulated the streets of Parma in disguise, 
to measure his sword with chance combatants 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 259 

who seemed worthy of his challenge. When the 
last crusade was proclaimed against the Turks, 
he flew to the Levant, obtained a place in the 
very front of the battle at Lepanto, sprang alone 
on board the doubly-armed treasure-ship of the 
enemy, cut a passage for his followers with 
superhuman strokes from his two-handed sword, 
and securing that galley, and another which was 
sent to its rescue, divided the immense booty 
between himself and his crew.* In the Nether- 
lands, he won the battle of Gemblours by a des- 
perate manoeuvre, and showed himself equally 
ready for stratagem and for conflict. His stately 
demeanor, dark piercing eyes, fine features, and 
martial figure, habited in high ruff, gold-inlaid 
armor, and the decoration of the Golden Fleece, 
betokened the warrior and the prince. Self- 
poised, politic, and prudent, his very lenity to- 
wards the vanquished made him a more formi- 
dable foe than any of Philip's emissaries by 
whom he had been preceded. 

Within a few months after the arrival of the 
English reinforcements, he besieged the towns 
of Grave, Venlo, and Nuys, all of which were 
compelled to surrender. The allied forces were 
less successful in their retaliation upon several 

* Motley's Dutch Republic. 



260 THE LIF E AND TIMES OF 

places in his possession. As Sidney's name is 
not mentioned in connection with these events, 
we infer that he was engaged elsewhere. In the 
month of June, however, in concert with the 
young Prince Maurice, of Nassau, he took the 
town of Axell, by a well-conducted surprise, and 
his discretion on that occasion furnishes an evi- 
dence of what he might have achieved as a 
military commander, had his life been spared. 
Previous to the attack, he drew up his soldiers in 
battle array, and addressed them in a strain of 
eloquence which, says the enthusiastic chronicler, 
" did so link their minds that they did desire 
rather to die in that service than to live in the 
contrary." He appealed to their Protestant zeal 
— for party fervor, it must be remembered, was 
then religious, as well as military and political — 
to their loyalty, as subjects of a mighty Queen, 
to their pride, as sons of a glorious land, to their 
bravery, as men unfearing, in a noble cause, both 
danger and death. 

The attack was made under the protecting 
darkness of night, and Sir Philip, with a tact 
that reminds us of a Scipio or a Polybius, re- 
vived the discipline of the Roman legion. 

In silence and order the little band marched, 
unheard, to the very walls of Axell, and scaled 
them by ladders, without the loss of a single man ; 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 261 

and while a chosen phalanx planted itself in the 
broad market square, the rest secured the garri- 
son, and took possession of the public buildings. 
When the service was achieved, Sir Philip liber- 
ally rewarded them from his private purse.* 

About this time the Duke of Parma laid siege 
to Rhineberg, an important post which the States 
were extremely solicitous to retain. Leicester 
determined at last upon some decisive stroke 
which should satisfy his confederates; but, not 
venturing with his inferior numbers upon an 
engagement, he directed his forces to the assault 
of Zutphen, a strong town in Guelderland, whose 
resistance to the Duke of Alba, fourteen years 
before, had been avenged by the command to 
his soldiery not to leave a man alive, or a single 
house unburned. The horrors that followed this 
atrocious order seem incredible, even in the an- 
nals of that sanguinary day. The garrison were 
put to the sword without a moment's warning, 
and life was wellnigh extinguished in the city. 

* Fulke Greville's Life of Sir Philip Sidney. It appears 
from letters found in Wright's and Ellis's Collections that 
Sir Philip's munificence sometimes occasioned him serious 
embarrassment. He complains to Hatton, in 1581, of being 
deeply involved in debt, and, after his death, Walsingham 
wrote to Leicester that he must pay £6000 on his account, 
adding, however, " I weigh it nothing in respect of the loss 
of the gentleman who was my chiefe worldly comforte." 



262 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Five hundred burghers were tied together in 
pairs, and drowned in the river Yssel ; the fugi- 
tives were caught and hung upon the gallows, 
until released by death from their tortures. And 
though the wail of agony, " a sound as of a 
mighty massacre," was heard far beyond the city, 
the terrified listeners dared not approach for days 
after its doom was sealed.* 

The English troops, comprising 7000 foot and 
1400 dragoons, encamped before Zutphen, in the 
month of September, having first obtained pos- 
session of the little town of Doesberg, seven miles 
distant. The Governor had sent word to the 
Duke of Parma of his inability to sustain a siege, 
from the want of both provisions and ammuni- 
tion. Had Leicester immediately secured certain 
passes by which the city was entered, it must of 
necessity have surrendered; but here was another 
proof of the military incapacity which marked 
this whole campaign. Parma hastily raised the 
siege of Rhineberg, and marched his forces to the 
relief of Zutphen ; sending in advance the Italian 
cavalry, under the Marquis del Guasto, with tem- 
porary supplies. On the night of the 21st, a 
portion of them were conveyed without difficulty 
into the town, and, though the dawn broke before 

* Motley's Dutch Republic. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 263 

the labor was completed/ the Marquis resolved to 
hazard its continuance. 

It was a chill, gray morning. The fog rolled 
heavily up from the banks of the Yssel, and flung 
its spectral mantle over the beleaguered city and 
the white tents of the besiegers. 

" Their camp lay on the shadowy hill, all silent as a cloud ; 
Its very heart of life stood still — and the white mist brought 

its shroud ; 
For Death was walking in the dark, and grimly smiled to see 
How all was ranged and ready for his sumptuous jubilee." * 

The Italian and Spanish cavalry, 3000 in num- 
ber, conducted by Del Guasto and several distin- 
guished officers, were suddenly encountered by 
500 of the English cavalry,f under the command 
of Sir Philip Sidney and Sir John Norris. The 
former were driven back by a furious onset, but 
rallying to the charge, a combat ensued so ardent 
and impetuous on both sides, that its very name 
was long after a proverb in the land. Robert 

* Gerald Massey. 

f This is Stowe's account, but in the " Histoire des Pro- 
vinces Unies, par Leclerc," tome i. p. 128, we are told that 
the English numbered 1500 infantry and 200 cavalry. 

A full narration of this engagement is also found in the 
" Historische Beschreibung dess Niederlandischen Kriegs ; 
vom Jahr 1560 biss aufFl620, durch Emanuel von Meteren. 
Amsterdam 1627," page 531. 



264 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Sidney performed such prodigies of valor that 
he was knighted on the field; Sir William Russel 
charged so terribly with spear and curtelax that 
" the enemy reported him to be a devil and not a 
man ; " young Essex shouted, as he threw his 
lance upon the first assailant, " For the honor of 
England, my fellows, follow me ! " Lord Wil- 
loughby, Lord North, and many others, earned 
great distinction. But foremost in the hot affray, 
where loudest rang the clash of steel and deadly 
fire of arquebuse and musket, wherever the 
wounded fell, the timorous faltered, or the hostile 
host was fiercest, there glittered the gilded armor 
of our gallant Sidney — as he spurred his w T hite 
charger through the storm of bullets, now to 
encounter a fiery foe, anon to save a friend im- 
perilled by unequal numbers. Two horses were 
shot beneath him, and he quickly mounted 
a third. Just as the Spanish cavalry were giv- 
ing way, he saw Lord Willoughby surrounded 
by the enemy, and in imminent danger. Dash- 
ing over the prostrate slain — he rescued his friend, 
but was himself struck by a musket-ball which 
entered the left thigh, a little above the knee, 
dreadfully fracturing the bone, and riving the 
muscles far upward toward the body.* He was 

* It is said that he had left the camp in full armor, but 
meeting the Marshal lightly armed, had divested himself of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 265 

instantly borne from the fatal spot, and a mes- 
senger carried the sad tidings to Lord Leicester. 
Men who had that day encountered the King of 
Terrors with undaunted eye, wept as they heard 
that the price of victory must be the death of 
Sidney. u O Philip!" cried the Earl, in the 
touching plaint of grief, " I am sorry for thy 
hurt ! " " This have I done," replied the wound- 
ed hero, " to do you honor, and Her Majesty 
service." In death, as in life, he served, not him- 
self, but his country and his friends. With tears 
of sorrow, Sir William Russel kissed his hand 
and said, " O noble Sir Philip, there was never 
any man attained hurt more honorably than you 
have done, or any served like unto you." 

And here we have arrived at one of the last 
and most beautiful acts of a beautiful career. 
We record once more the story which has floated 
down on the echoing voices of almost three hun- 
dred years, and with its sweet lesson still thrills 
the soul of childhood and quickens the pulse of 
age. As he was borne from the field of action, 
faint, pallid, and parched with the thirst that 
attends excessive loss of blood, Sidney asked for 
water. It was obtained, doubtless, with difficulty 

his greaves ; an act, which some of his biographers consider 
a proof of courage, and others have censured for its indis- 
cretion. 



2GG THE L1FE AND TIMES OF 

and in scant supply. With trembling hand he 
raised the cup to his lips, when his eye was ar- 
rested by the gaze of a dying soldier, longingly 
fixed upon the precious draught. Without tast- 
ing, he instantly handed it to the sufferer, with 
the memorable words, "Thy necessity is greater 
than mine ! " * 

The affection of Leicester for his nephew was 

* This incident was the subject of a painting by Benjamin 
West, a description of which, taken from Zouch's Life of 
Sidney, we here insert : 

" The centre of this composition is occupied by the wounded 
hero, Sir Philip Sidney, seated on a litter, who, while his 
wound is dressing by the attending surgeons, is ordering the 
water (which is pouring out for him to allay the extreme 
thirst he suffered from the loss of blood) to be given to a 
wounded soldier, to whom he points, in the second group to 
his right, who had cast a longing look toward it. Behind, and 
to the left of Sidney, the Earl of Leicester, in dark armor, is 
discovered as commander in chief, issuing his orders to the 
surrounding cavalry, as engaged in the confusion of the con- 
tending armies. Among the several spirited war-horses that 
are introduced, that of Sidney, a white horse, is seen under 
the management of his servant, but still restive and ungovern- 
able. The portrait of the artist is found to the right of the 
picture, the figure leaning on a horse in the foreground, and 
contemplating the interesting scene before him. The back- 
ground, and to the extreme distance of the horizon, the 
movements of the armies, and the rage of battle are every- 
where visible, enveloped in an atmosphere that has fixed upon 
it the true aspect of danger and dismay." 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 267 

the redeeming point in his character. In the 
simple language of sincere distress, he wrote, the 
day after the battle : — 

" This young manne, he was my greatest corn- 
forte, next her Majestie, of all the worlde, and if 
I could buy his lieffe, with all I have, to my sherte, 
I would give yt. How God will dispose of him 
I know not, but feare I must needes greatly the 
worste ; the blow in so dangerous a place and so 
great; yet did I never hear of any manne that 
did abide the dressinge and settinge of his bones 
better than he did. And he was carried after- 
wards in my barge to Arnheim, and I heare this 
day he ys still of good hearte, and comforteth all 
aboute him as much as may be. God of his 
mercie graunt me his lieffe, which I cannot but 
doubt of greatly. I was abrode that time in the 
fielde, givinge some order to supplie that business, 
which did indure almost twoe owres in continuall 
fighte, and meetinge Philip commynge on horse- 
backe, not a little to my greafe. — Well, I praye 
God, yf it be his will, save me his lieffe ; even as 
well for her Majestie's service sake, as for myne 
own comforte." 

The utmost art of the imperfect surgery of the 
time was bestowed upon the illustrious patient, 
and the devoted care of Lady Sidney and several 
friends attended him during the sixteen days that 



2G8 TH E LIFE AND TIMES OF 

intervened until his death. Hopes of his recovery 
were at first encouraged, but the bullet, which 
was supposed to have been poisoned, could not 
be extracted. The solicitous inquiries that were 
constantly sent from both Belgium and England, 
proved, if proof were needed, how highly his life 
was prized ; and Count Hohenlo exclaimed with 
the blunt fervor of a soldier to the surgeon who 
expressed his apprehension of a fatal result, 
"Away, villain, never see my face again, till thou 
bring better news of that man's recovery, for 
whose redemption many such as I were happily 
lost." 

Sir Philip seems to have been visited from the 
first with premonitions of his death;, but the 
messenger from the spirit land came to him, not 
as a spectre of fear, but as an angel of hope. 
Through suffering so extreme that even the b>ones 
of the shoulder were worn through the skin, he 
was patient, placid, and loving ; so tranquil, in- 
deed, that he wrote a long letter to an eminent 
divine in pure and elegant Latin, composed an 
ode, (unfortunately not preserved,) on the ap- 
proach of dissolution, discoursed at length and 
with argumentative clearness on the immortality 
of the soul, and dictated his will with minute 
remembrance of all his friends and servants.* 

* Of that instrument Sir Fulke Greville says, " This will of 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 26(? 

With the undoubting confidence of religious 
faith, he imputed the fatal disaster, not to chance, 
but to the immediate ordinance of the Creator; 
and not only expressed entire resignation, but 
even avowed himself grateful for sufferings 
" which should profit him whether he lived or 
died." " Love my memory," said he to his af- 
flicted brother, " cherish my friends ; their faith 
to me may assure you that they are honest. But, 
above all, govern your will and affections by the 
will and word of your Creator, in me beholding 
the end of this world with all its vanities." 

There is a simple and touching little sketch of 
his last illness, written by his chaplain, who was 
his constant attendant during its continuance. It 
is still preserved in the British Museum, and 
quoted at length by Dr. Zouch, and we are confi- 
dent that a few brief extracts cannot fail to be of 
interest : — 

" The night before he died, towards the morn- 
ing, I asked him how he did. He answered, ' I 
feel myself more weak.' ' I trust,' said I, ' you 
are well, and thoroughly prepared for death, yf 

his will ever remain for a witness to the world that, even 
dying, those sweet and large affections in him could no more 
be contracted with the narrowness of pain, grief, or sickness, 
than any sparkle of our immortality can be privately buried 
in the shadows of death." 



270 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

God shall call you.' At this he made a little 
pause, and then he answered, ' I have a doubt ; 
pray resolve me in it. I have not slept this 
night; I have verie earnestlie and humblie be- 
sought the Lord to give me some sleep ; he hath 
denied it; this causeth me to doubt that God 
doth not regard me, nor heare any of my prayers ; 
this doth trouble me.' Answer was made that, 
for matters touching salvation or pardon of our 
sins through Christ, he gave an absolute promise ; 
but, for things concerning this life, God hath 
promised them but with caution ; that which he 
hath absolutely promised we may assuredly look 
to receive, craving in faith that which he hath 
thus promised. ' I am,' said he, ' fully satisfied, 
and resolved with this answer. No doubt it is 
even so ; then I will submit myself to his will in 
these outward things.' He added, farther, ' I had 
this night a trouble in my mynd ; for, searching 
myself, methought I had not a full and sure hould 
of Christ. After I had continued in this perplex- 
ity awhile, how strangelie God did deliver me! 
There came to my remembrance a vanity in 
which I delighted, whereof I had not rid myself. 
I rid myself of it, and presently my joie and 
comfort returned.' — Within a few hours after, I 
told him that I thought his death did approach, 
which indeed he well perceived, and for which he 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 271 

prepared himself. His fear that death would take 
away his understanding did continue. 'I doe,' 
said he, ' with trembling hart, most humblie in- 
treat the Lord that the pangs of death may not 
be so grievous as to take away my understanding.' 

" It was proved to him by testimonies and in- 
fallible reasons out of the Scriptures, that, al- 
though his understanding and senses should fail, 
yet that faith, which he had now, could not fail, 
but would hold still the powder and victory before 
God. At this, he did with a chearful and smiling 
countenance put forth his hand, and slappt me 
softlie on the cheeks. Not long after, he lifted 
up his eyes and hands, uttering these words, ' I 
would not chaunge my joye for the empire of the 
worlde ; ' for the nearer he saw death approach, 
the more his comfort seemed to increase. — As 
the light of a lamp is continued by pouring in 
of oyl, so he sought to have the burning zeal 
and flame of his prayer, upon which his heart 
was still bent, cherished by the comforts of the 
holy word ; accounting it a great injury, if we 
did not seek to give wings to his faith to carry 
up his prayers speedily, uttering grief when he 
felt any thought interrupting him. 

" Having made a comparison of God's grace 
now in him, his former virtues seemed to be 
nothing; for he wholly condemned his former 



272 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 



life. ' All things in it,' said he, ' have been vaine, 
vaine, vaine.' 

" It now seemed as if all natural heat and life 
were almost utterly gone out of him, that his 
understanding had failed, and that it was to no 
purpose to speak any more unto him. But it 
was far otherwise. I spake thus unto him : ' Sir, 
if you heare what I saye, let us by some means 
know it, and if you have still your inward joye 
and consolation in God, hould up your hand.' 
With that, he did lift up his hand, and stretched 
it forth on high, which we thought he could 
scarce have moved, and it caused the beholders 
to cry out with joy, that his understanding should 
be still so perfect, and that the weak body, be- 
yond ah expectation, should so readily give a 
sign of the joye of the soul. After this, asking 
him to lift up his hands to God, seeing he could 
not speak or open his eyes — that we might see 
his heart still prayed, he raised both his hands, 
and set them together on his breast, and held 
them upwards, after the manner of those which 
make humble petitions ; and so his hands did 
remain, and even so stiff, that they would have 
so continued standing, but that we took the one 
from the other." 

A little before his death, he called for music ; 
and thus, amid the harmonies of earth, the bene- 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 273 

dictions of love, and the incense of prayer, the 
spirit of Philip Sidney soared to the spheres of 
Mystery and of Promise. 

It was on the 17th day of October, and his 
age was nearly thirty-two. In life, the patriot, 
the scholar, the pride of chivalry ; in death, the 
hero, the philosopher, and the Christian. 

When a nation weeps, the sorrow is sincere, 
the tribute is sublime. England bewailed, with 
almost unprecedented sorrow, the loss of her 
most promising son. The higher ranks all as- 
sumed the garb of mourning, and for many 
months no one, at Court or in the city, appeared 
in gay attire, — an honor never before accorded 
to a private individual. The Queen expressed 
the deepest sorrow. Lord Buckhurst wrote to 
Leicester, " By the decease of that noble gentle- 
man, her Majesty and the whole realm do suffer 
no small loss and detriment. He hath had as 
great love in this life, and as many tears for his 
death, as ever any had." Du Plessis said to 
Walsingham, " I have experienced troubles and 
disappointments in these troublous times, but 
nothing which lay heavier upon me, nor so struck 
me to the heart, no private or public calamity 
which ever so sensibly affected me. I bewail 
his loss, and regret him, not for England only; 
but for all Christendom.'' 

18 



274 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Even the flinty heart of Philip II. was softened 
for an instant, as he prophetically exclaimed, 
" England has lost in one moment what she 
may not produce in an age ; " and his secretary, 
Mendoza, remarked that, " however glad he was 
his master had lost an enemy, yet he could not 
but lament to see Christendom deprived of so 
rare a light in those cloudy times." The United 
Provinces besought the privilege of his burial, 
promising to raise " as fair a monument as had 
any prince in Europe, yea, though it should cost 
half a ton of gold." The Queen refused the re- 
quest, preferring to honor the memory of her knight 
by assuming, herself, the expenses of a magni- 
ficent funeral. With solemn pomp his remains 
were removed to Flushing, and thence embarked 
for England. The English garrison, twelve hun- 
dred in number, headed the procession, marching 
by three and three, their halberts, pikes, and en- 
signs trailing on the ground. Next came the coffin 
covered with a pall of velvet, then the burghers 
of the town in deep mourning, slowly and sadly 
marching to the sound of muffled drums and 
softly breathing fifes. A triple volley of small 
shot was fired, followed by two discharges from 
the great ordnance about the walls. " And so," 
says the Chronicle, "they took their leave of 
their well-beloved governor." His honored relics 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 275 

were transported in a pinnace of his own, whose 
" sayles, tackling, and other furniture were col- 
oured blacke, and blacke clothe hung round her 
with escuchions of his arms, and she was accom- 
panied with divers other shipps." The body lay 
in state at Aldgate until the 16th of February, 
when it was deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral, 
with a splendor of ceremonial unparalleled, 
except for royalty. The Lord Mayor and the 
Aldermen on horseback, in their scarlet gowns 
lined with ermine, seven representatives of the 
seven United Provinces clothed in black, several 
companies with their insignia, and a very numer- 
ous train of citizens, poured the tide of mournful 
homage through the streets of London. The 
pall was supported by the Earls of Huntingdon, 
Essex, Leicester, and Pembroke, and the Barons 
Willoughby and North. Sir Robert Sidney was 
chief mourner, his parents having both died a 
few months after Sir Philip was sent to Hol- 
land.* 

Upon a pillar in the choir of St. Paul's, there 

* Sir Philip left one child, a daughter, named Elizabeth, 
who was said to inherit much of her father's character. She 
married Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland, and died 
without children. Lady Sidney married three years after 
her husband's death, the Earl of Essex, and subsequently, the 
Earl of Clanrickard. 



276 THE LIFE A ND TIMES OF 

formerly hung a tablet, graven with the following 
epitaph, which, it is now believed, was written 
by Sir Walter Raleigh : — 

" England, Netherlands, the heavens, and the arts, 
The soldier, and the world, have made six parts 
Of the noble Sidney, for none will suppose 
That a small heap of stones can Sidney inclose • 
His body hath England, for she it bred, 
Netherlands, his blood, in her defence shed ; 
The heavens have his soul, the arts have his fame, 
All soldier's the grief, and the world, his good name." 

The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford 
expressed, in three volumes of adulatory Greek 
and Latin verse, their esteem and sorrow. An 
elegiac plaint from James of Scotland, swelled 
the voice of universal praise ; and, it is said, that 
more than two hundred noted writers have, at 
different times, borne testimony to his merits. 
Camden wrote of him : — 

" This is that Sidney, whom, as Providence 
seems to have sent into the world to give the 
present age a specimen of the antients, so did it 
on a sudden recall him, and snatch him from us, 
as more worthy of heaven than of earth. Thus, 
when virtue is come to perfection, it presently 
leaves us, and the best things are seldom lasting. 
Rest, then, in peace, O Sidney, if I may be 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 277 

allowed this address. We will not celebrate thy 
memory with tears, but with admiration. What- 
ever we loved in thee, (as the best author speaks 
of the best governor of Britain,) whatever we 
admired in thee continues, and will continue, in 
the memories of men, the revolutions of ages, 
and the annals of time. Many, as inglorious and 
ignoble, are buried in oblivion, but Sidney shall 
live to all posterity. For, as the Greek poet has 
it, Virtue's beyond the reach of Fate." 

Spenser commemorated his patron under his 
poetical appellation of Astrophel, and also in 
two Epitaphs, which contain these lines : — 

" A King gave thee thy name ; a Kingly minde 
That God thee gave, who found it now too deere 
For this base world, and hath resumde it neere, 
To sit in skies, and sort with powers divine. 
Kent thy birth- daies, and Oxford held thy youth ; 
The heavens made haste, and staid nor years nor time ; 
The fruits of age grew ripe in thy first prime, 
Thy will, thy words ; thy words the seales of truth. 
Great gifts and wisdom rare imployd thee thence, 
To treat from Kings with those more great than Kings ; 
Such hope men had to lay the highest things 
On thy wise youth, to be transported thence ! 
******* 
What hath he lost, that such great grace hath won ? 
Young years for endless years, and hope unsure 
Of fortune's gifts, for wealth that still shall dure ; 
Oh ! happy race with so great praises run ! " 
18* 



278 THE LIF E AND TIMES OF 

Thomson has enshrined the memory of Sir 
Philip, in his harmonious verse : — 

" Nor can the Muse the gallant Sidney pass, 
The plume of war ! with early laurels crowned, 
The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay." 

Campbell bestowed a tribute of united praise 
upon Sidney and Spenser : — 

" The man that looks sweet Sidney in the face, 
Beholding there love's truest majesty, 
And the soft image of departed grace, 
Shall fill his mind with magnanimity ; 
There may he read unfeigned humility, 
And golden pity, born of heavenly flood, 
Unsullied thought of immortality, 
And musing virtue, prodigal of blood : 
Yes, in this map of what is fair and good, 
This glorious index of a heavenly book, 
Not seldom, as in youthful years he stood, 
Divinest Spenser would admiring look, 
And framing thence high wit and pure desire, 
Imagined deeds that set the world on fire."' 

" Sidney trod," says the author of the Effigiae 
Poeticse, " from his cradle to his grave, amid in- 
cense and flowers, and died in a dream of glory." 

It is needless to dilate upon the talents and the 
virtues of Philip Sidney; equally needless, and 
more perplexing, to attempt further selection from 
the oblations that have been profusely thrown 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 27i) 

upon his shrine. By the consenting acclaim of 
all his contemporaries, by the impartial voice of 
succeeding ages, even by the critical fiat of the 
nineteenth century, he stands in the Pantheon of 
Fame, But to the world at large, he stands there 
rather as a luminous, half-defined phantom, than 
as a sculptured form ; and many marvel that a 
man whose years were few, whose achievements 
were of no startling greatness, whose words 
created no era in thought, is encircled with 
a halo, which neither melts before Time, nor is 
dimmed by a brightening civilization. We be- 
lieve that the solution is twofold. In the first 
place, he was the representative of the finest 
features of his country and his age. Under happy 
coincidences of nature and of education, he em- 
bodied and idealized the patriotism, the piety, the 
intellectual activity, the practical energy, and the 
romantic knight-errantry, for which Europe, and 
especially England, was at that time distin- 
guished. He seemed, besides, to be a connecting 
link between the ancient cavalier and the modern 
gentleman, blending in focal beauty the martial 
valor, the ceremonious courtesy, the religious de- 
votion of the one, with the culture, the refine- 
ments, and the lofty independence of the other. 

The prestige that attends him is farther heigh- 
tened by the harmony of his social and spiritual 



280 THE LTFE AND TIMES OF 

nature. It is the homage that mankind univer- 
sally pays to that consistent goodness, which, 
emanating from an aspiring, well-balanced soul, 
atmospheres the life with depths as pellucid and 
serene as those of an Egyptian sky. We view 
his character from every side with satisfaction; 
and so perfect are its proportions, that we forget 
their individual dignity, in admiration of their 
concentred beauty. Generous and genial, pos- 
sessing an inherent nobility that lifted him far 
above the littleness of envy and deceit, his com- 
mon and daily acts impressed men with his sin- 
cerity and his justice. His conversation and his 
writings not only revealed the affluence of a well- 
stored mind, they were the lofty utterances of 
one who dwelt amid the Alpine peaks of thought. 
The heroism, the purity, the spiritual beauty that 
he portrayed, were the echoes of a soul that an- 
swered but to the inspiration of Truth. Even his 
fault — we are constrained to use the singular — 
that of a somewhat impetuous temper, was the 
mere effervescence of an intense nature, and 
scarcely detracted from his essential consistency. 

" We should count time by heart-throbs, 
Not by hours upon a dial. He most lives. 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

Though his life was undistinguished by action, 



SIR PHILrP SIDNEY. 281 

it glowed with all the elements of greatness. 
In his embassy to Germany, in his letter to the 
Queen, in his conduct in Belgium, and on the 
field of Zutphen, we see the germ of powers that 
needed but time and occasion for an unfolding, 
that would have ranked him with the wisest of 
statesmen, the most renowned of soldiers. Never- 
theless, it is by the attraction of character, rather 
than by the grandeur of deeds, or the splendor of 
genius, that the fame of Philip Sidney retains its 
vitality. No hours of indolence or of folly left 
their blank record upon his tomb ; the daily and 
hourly culture of taste, of knowledge, and of 
virtue graved the moral of a life which, though 
brief in years, was fruitful in those results which 
give to life at once its beauty and its reward. 



THE END. 



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